Finding Solutions For Human-Elephant Coexistence In Gabon
With over 90% of the country’s landmass covered in rainforests, Gabon is the lung of Africa and one of the world’s most important habitats in the face of climate change. These forests are also home to over 95,000 critically endangered forest elephants making this small central African country the last stronghold for the species’ survival. However, living alongside elephants is not easy in these forests.
Subsistence farmers are scattered across the country, applying shifting agricultural methods to carve out an existence on small plots of cleared forest (on average less than a hectare). When forest elephants raid crops, the impact is heartbreaking, especially for subsistence farmers, with severe economic implications and, at times, retaliatory actions against elephants. Human-elephant conflict is complex, raw and emotive and finding lasting solutions is tough.
In 2016, the President of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba, one of the founding members of the Giants Club Initiative, launched an ambitious electric fence-building programme with technical support provided by Space for Giants to address this national problem. With over a decade of experience, Space for Giants was well-placed to develop a solution that would fit the Gabonese context.
After several years of trial and error, in March 2022, Space for Giants pioneered a mobile electric fencing design, a bespoke solution for Gabon. Simple in design, affordable to scale, and completely moveable in nature, this simplified design has proven to be over 90% effective in protecting farmers from crop-raiding elephants.
As of March 2023, Space for Giants and its partners have installed 251 mobile electric fences across Gabon, helping over 2388 people to coexist with forest elephants. By the end of this year, 500 more are planned to be installed, and the aim is to scale up an additional 1000 fences per annum.
Alongside the mobile fences, in 2022, Space for Giants helped Gabon’s Ministry of Water and Forests launch an App called CHF-Gabon that is used to register human-elephant conflict complaints. This App creates a centralized database for the Ministry that will be used to determine compensation for victim farmers. It is also used to identify candidates for mobile fence solutions.
The government of the Gabonese Republic and Space for Giants are committed to protecting subsistence farmers while ensuring the survival of forest elephants and the landscapes they depend on.
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