8. Climatic factors
Although not often mentioned, perhaps because they cannot be controlled, climatic trends are an important cause of HWC. Seasonal changes in rainfall are directly correlated with predation intensity in Kenya. In Tsavo National Parks, quantified a positive association between monthly rainfall and attacks, demonstrating that in this region lions are more likely to attack livestock during seasonal rains. During drought periods, ungulates spend most of their time near a limited number of water sources and thus they are easily found and killed; when rain fills seasonal pools, lions disperse into their habitat, change their diets, and prey on easier targets . In Zimbabwe, in proximity to the Sengwa Wildlife Research Area, the correlation between seasonal changes and intensity of livestock depredation is also found to be strong. However, contrary to the Kenya Tsavo case, wild predators are more likely to attract attention and attack domestic animals in the dry season months, when the vegetative cover does not facilitate the hunting strategies of lions and leopards that are based on surprise.
9. Stochastic events (e.g. fire)
These sporadic events are difficult to forecast and prevent, yet also have an impact on human wildlife conflicts. During 1997-98, an El Niño Southern Oscillation caused drought and fires, a combination of factors, which resulted in the destruction of large areas of Sumatran forests. During that period, tigers fleeing burning areas near Berbak National Park were reported to have killed several people.
INSTANCES OF PEOPLE WILDLIFE CONFLICT
This section reviews a selection of species-site specific cases to provide a better understanding of the HWC worldwide and to highlight common problems across local, regional and national levels. The case studies cover Europe, Africa, North America and Asia and demonstrate that HWC is more intense in the tropics and in developing countries where livestock holdings and agriculture are an important part of rural people’s livelihoods and incomes. In these regions, competition between local communities and wild animals, for the use of natural resources, is particularly intense and direct and resident human populations are very vulnerable. Of course, the relative impact of wildlife damage on farm production and household income varies greatly according to the amount of land owned and people's economic dependance on rural activities. Clearly, indigenous people with a low standard of living are particularly at risk, as are agro-pastoralists who depend exclusively on production and income from their land.
Conflict is particularly common in reserve borders, where species that rely on extensive territories come into contact with human settlements. In effect, border zones of protected areas may be considered population sinks: critical zones in which conflict is the major cause of mortality. These case studies also demonstrate that conflict is most acute in zones in which a wide range of species coexists with high-density human populations. Nature reserves that encompass densely populated human settlements seem to pose the greatest challenge. Many of the cases reported are from India, where 69% of the reserves support an estimated local population of more than three million people, who engage in agriculture, livestock grazing and extraction of forest products,or Kenya, where the largest park system of the country, Tsavo National Park buffer zone (ca. 20,000Km²), supports almost 2,50,000 people.
It is important to note that most of the species concerned are carnivores and large home range species, which are important from a conservation point of view. In fact, they have a profound influence on biological communities and often alter the structure and function of entire ecosystems via interspecific competition and regulation of prey population density. If large home range and keystone specifics are not protected the entire biodiversity conservation is undermined.
1. Lion and other carnivore conflict in Zimbabwe and Kenya
[Zimbabwe: Lion - vulnerable; Leopard - endangered]
In Zimbabwe, many areas of traditional agro-pastoralism bordering protected areas suffer from livestock depredation. In particular, in the Gowke communal land, neighbouring the Sengwa Wildlife Research Area, rural villagers experience a negative impact from the close proximity to the reserve, wild carnivores attack domestic livestock and the conflict is severe. It was reported that, between January 1993 and June 1996, in a study area of 33 Km², 241 livestock were killed by baboons, lions and leopards, which contributed respectively 52%, 34% and 12% of the kills. Their predation techniques are different, as baboons attack by day and usually kill small-stock such as goats and sheep, while lions and leopards attack at night, with lions killing larger prey such as cattle and donkeys. The average loss in that time period was quite consistent, with an annual loss per household equivalent to 12% of the total family's income. It is worth pointing out the fact that despite baboons killing more animals, lions caused the greatest economic loss because of the high value of cattle.
[Kenya: Lion, Cheetah - vulnerable; Spotted Hyenas - lower risk(conservation dependant)]
HWC not only affects rural and vulnerable communities, but also commercial cattle ranches. In this regard, the researcher evaluated the level of impact of 2 private cattle ranches that lie adjacent to the boundary of the Tsavo East National Park in Kenya. In this study area, three carnivore species were determined to be responsible for attacks: lions and spotted hyenas, which target large domestic animals such as cows, bulls, steers; and cheetahs, which take only smaller adult stock and young cattle. In a four-year study the ranches have lost an average of 2.4% of the total herd per annum, which represented 2.6% of their economic value and amounted to US$ 8,749.
2. Middle East - Golden Jackal conflict in Israel
The following research demonstrates that the increased food availability from agricultural production and illegal refuse dumps can disturb ecological equilibriums through maintenance of a large predator population above a habitat’s natural carrying capacity.
In Israel, a third of the Golan grassland plateau is managed as pasture for grazing cattle and it is inhabited by farmers who produce cereals, fruits, turkeys, hens and diary products. The farmers claim to lose an average of 1.5-1.9% of the calves born each year to golden jackal predation. The economic value of the total cattle losses in 1993 was estimated to be about US$ 42,000. This high predation rate is actually indirectly caused by the farmers themselves, through the illegal dumping of domestic animal carcasses, a primary source of food for the jackals, whose population has in turn thrived and augmented. As a matter of fact, in a decade, the number of jackals increased from a density of 0.2/Km² to 2.5/Km² and the current amount of meat dumped by farm is calculated to be enough to support a population density of 3.8/Km² predators. This means that the conflict is expected to escalate if illegal waste dumping is not prohibited and the predator population is not controlled.
Wildlife conflict in India
In India, traditions and cultural/religious attitudes towards wild animals make local people more tolerant towards wildlife, despite the damage to crops and livestock it causes. Orthodox Hindus for instance consider monkeys to be sacred animals, to be revered and protected. This religious belief and traditional attachment to monkeys greatly influences people’s perception of the conflict, resulting in its partial acceptance.
The general reverence towards plants and animals in some Indian regions has often been reported to be the main reason for people not persecuting large carnivores and a positive attitude towards wildlife and nature reserves, as the research demonstrates.
In the Indian state of Rajasthan, the Sariska Tiger Reserve supports a population of about 107,770 people, distributed in 117 villages, which are located in and around the protected area. Many species of wild herbivores are blamed for crop raiding in this region: Nilgai and wild boar are reported to be responsible for at least 50% of the damage, while other species as sambar, chital, common langur, rhesus monkey and parakeets accounted for the rest. Nilgai usually raids crops in the evening and tends to favour the degraded edges of forest villages. Wild boar instead, acts at night, while other ungulates such as sambar and chital are usually confined to forest cores. The data on crop damage relevant from 1996-97, revealed that the annual crop losses varied according to the type of crop grown, in fact the annual loss for chickpeas 10-27% per ha. The percentages ranged so broadly because the distance between the reserve border and the household surveyed varied from 0 to 3 Km and in general the depredation increased with closer proximity to the reserve. In monetary terms, the annual average value of crop losses in that period of time, corresponded to Rs.3,280per household located inside the reserve, and Rs.2430 per household located 2.5 Km away.
Among wild carnivores, the main livestock predators were reported to be tigers and leopards, with the former preying on large domestic animals such as cattle and buffaloes and the latter on smaller animals like goats, sheep and calves. Tigers were reported to be a major threat in villages located inside and close to the reserve, leopards instead, avoided competition with tigers and frequented areas further outside the villages. The calculation of the economic impact was based on domestic animal prices provided by those agro-pastoralists interviewed during the survey, which revealed that between 1994 and 1996, the annual family loss amounted to Rs.270-610. This is much less than crop losses and is certainly enhanced by the villagers taking their domestic animals into the reserve for grazing throughout the year.
4. Lion and leopard conflict in India
[Asian lion - critically endangered; Leopard - endangered]
In India, in the state of Gujarat, in the proximity of Gir National Park and Sanctuary, the Asian lion and leopard use the extensive plantations of sugarcane and mango to find shelter and water and to hunt prey such as buffaloes, cows, pigs and dogs. Several lions are reported to have strayed outside the park boundary and into plantations for more than a week, while leopards have chosen it as permanent habitat and even breed in cultivated fields bordering the edge of the park. Once again, the overlapping of wild animals’ home ranges with human settlements has resulted in cattle depredation and attacks on farmers and labourers. The problem in this area is of similar nature to the others described above: the safety of rural people is threatened, livestock depredation is common and the overall ability to address the conflict is weak.
5. Tiger and Asian elephant conflict in India
[Tigers - endangered; Asian elephants - endangered]
In the Southern Indian state of Karnataka, the Bhadra Tiger Reserve hosts a large number of mammalian fauna as well as a population of 3,000 people. Data collection and surveys performed in the region between 1996 and 1999 provided evidence of resident villagers suffering from a high level of economic impact due to HWC. The overall annual loss due to large feline (tigers and leopards) depredation is reported to be approximately 12% of the total family livestock holding, which is equivalent to 16% of the average annual household income in the region. An interesting detail is that although large carnivores had a considerable negative impact on the cattle population, the villages over compensated the loss with purchases. Besides, elephant damage to crops accounted for an average loss of 14% of the total annual production (0.82 tonnes per family), which in monetary terms is equal to 30% of the average annual household income in the region.
MITIGATIVE STRATEGIES
1. Compensation systems
HWC carries significant economic costs to humans and compensation is a measure which aims to alleviate conflict by reimbursing people for their losses. Compensation systems rely on giving out monetary payments or licenses to exploit natural resources, allowing the hunting of game or the collection of fuel wood, timber and fodder from inside protected areas. Of the two methods, financial compensation is a very contentious issue and the least popular due to its inefficiency and low rate of reimbursement. This is a reality in many developing countries, which face budget constraints and usually pay on an irregular basis and to a limited extent. The second compensation scheme, also known as the “settlement of rights” to use natural resources, appears to be a more practical solution, as the following case studies demonstrate.
In India, in the state of Karnataka, financial compensation schemes are not very effective. The process of claiming compensation and the verification and approval procedures are very bureaucratic and often result in only a small portion of the claims being paid. In a survey undertaken between 1996 and 99 an overall 11% of the total claims for livestock depredation and 26% for crop losses were refunded. Secondly, the reimbursement can take up to 6 months to be released and usually undervalues the loss claimed for livestock kills and 14% for crop damage.
Such problems have been reported elsewhere in India, in particular in the state of Himachal Pradesh, where people are discouraged from claiming compensation because of the time and costs involved in the process. In this region, in 1995, economic losses were again marginally compensated: in that year, only half of the agro-pastoralists claiming compensation for losses from snow leopard attacks received monetary reimbursement, which covered only 3% of the total annual loss.
In Kenya, compensation schemes are very problematic. The government has not provided any reimbursement for crop and livestock loss since 1989 and it neither replaces nor repairs any
installations that are destroyed by wild animals. Moreover, the compensation received for loss of human life or injury is not sufficient to cover funeral expenses or hospital bills. It also does not take into consideration the impact of such incidents on dependent children who are often taken out of school because of the lack of funds to pay their fees.
Obviously, this type of compensation scheme can do little to reduce the HWC and needs to be modernized in order to become less bureaucratic, more reactive and transparent. The calculation of the amount of cash to be reimbursed should be proportional to the loss, the number of family dependants, their schools fees, and hospital and burial costs.
However, there is some concern about improving and enforcing this system because it is suspected that a well-develop compensation scheme would result in inflated claims and attract people from outside the affected areas thus increasing the pressure and the problem. In addition, this is not a sustainable solution as it depends heavily on the final budget of the local governing bodies and it does not encourage villagers to protect their holdings and to coexist with wild animals.
An alternative approach, the “settlement of rights”, appears to be a better strategy. It fixes a quota of commodities that can be exploited, it clearly demarcates reserve zones that are accessible to local villagers and it legitimises their rights to those resources. Indeed, the benefits derived from the legitimate collection of natural resources influence the attitudes and perceptions of rural residents towards wildlife and conservation, while promoting responsibility and awareness,
2. Insurance programmes
Livestock and crop insurance is often proposed as an innovative solution to mitigating the impact of HWC, but it is yet to be experimented broadly. It covers crops and livestock from the risk of wildlife attacks and involves the villagers and local governing bodies paying a premium share of the insurance and allows rural inhabitants to make a minimum annual cost and to be refunded in the event of crop or livestock losses. In addition, the local governing bodies or the forest department are relieved of significant financial expenses, from not having to administer compensation schemes.
Despite the fact that this approach has not yet been experimented over a large scale, a collaborative insurance programme is in progress in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India, where it seems to be implemented successfully. In fact, villagers contribute monthly to the insurance programme and receive compensation in proportion to the total number of livestock killed and the total amount paid into the insurance fund during the year. Moreover, they get monetary rewards for better anti- predatory herding and have learned simple rules to reduce domestic animal vulnerability, such as being aware of sick, young or pregnant animals and not to collect the carcasses of killed yaks, horses, cattle or donkeys. As a result they have become progressively more responsible in safeguarding wildlife and have modified their husbandry and guarding behaviour.
3. Incentive programmes
Incentive programmes are based on subsidies. They offset the cost of conservation and demand the adoption of conservation-friendly practices, creating tolerance towards wildlife through the exchange of benefits.
Two interesting incentive programmes have been developed in India and Mongolia, where agro- pastoralists and pastoralists live within the snow leopard’s territory. In India, in the state of Himachal Pradesh, the programme succeeded in reducing the forage overlap among other human use. The villagers received financial benefits for their loss of herding land and the money was used for collective work. As a consequence, wild herbivore densities increased, resulting in more naturally available prey for predators and thus reducing the pressure of carnivores on livestock.
In Mongolia, the programme did not permit pastoralists to poach the snow leopard and its prey. The loss of income from poaching was offset by the sale of wool handicrafts, made by the women, to the Snow Leopard Enterprises. Income generation from handicrafts is growing in popularity because families have been able to increase their monthly per capita income by 25%. The programme itself is expected to grow rapidly, also because marketing opportunities for the handicrafts are opening. However one weakness of the incentives programme is the need for subsidies from external sources, from either conservation funds or governments.
4. Community based natural resource management schemes (CBNRMS)
A CBNRMS has been established in the Caprivi region of Namibia, where the eco-tourism industry and hunting concessions are potentially valuable for developing a local economy based on wildlife related revenues. This scheme entails a system of returning benefits to rural communities in order to motivate them to protect wildlife outside protected areas and to discourage poaching; it is still at an early stage, but it is expected to have a real potential in mitigating the conflict.
5. Regulated harvest
In many regions, HWC is managed by hunting. This is a low cost technique and has the potential to raise public tolerance towards wildlife. The money raised from the sale of licences can fund conservation activities and the protection of human settlements. To be viewed as a legitimate management practice, hunting needs to be based on scientific monitoring that ensures sustainable harvests and it needs to be regulated by policies that address the timing, location and methods of hunting, as well as the distribution of benefits to all stakeholders. In reality, lethal control is considered to be an expedient to satisfy the aggrieved party and reasons for scientific scepticism are due to the lack of selection of target animals to be eliminated. As a result the individual animals killed are often not responsible for depredation and after their removal other individuals can cause trouble in the same location. It is assumed that regulated harvest is not effective in reducing crop and livestock losses and it is also likely to increase the risk of further losses when dangerous carnivores are wounded instead of being killed.
6. Wildlife translocation
Translocation consists of moving a certain number of animals from a problematic zone to a new site. In spite of seeming to be the least sensible of the solutions listed above and the risk of exporting the problem to another site, it may be a practical and acceptable approach in some cases and where there is the availability of a suitable habitat with territorial vacancies. Translocation works well when isolated individuals are unable to survive or reproduce because they are too distant from the main population and need to be moved back to their own group; or when a high density population needs to be reduced through the relocation of individuals.
An interesting case study is from Northern India, where about 260,000 rhesus monkeys live in areas of human settlement and translocation has been reported to be the best non- destructive control measure. In the state of Uttar Pradesh, Vrindaban, where the density of rhesus monkeys was extremely high (304 individuals per square kilometre), their presence caused a serious nuisance to inhabitants. They reported suffering from monkeys biting, stealing, damaging and destroying property, such as cars, gardens, house furnishings, television antennas and electric poles. In 1997, 600 rhesus monkeys were moved from the urban area of Vrindaban to eight different semi-natural forest patches. Their density was reduced by 45% of the total original population and this reduced the conflict. The programme was successful as the monkeys that had been moved, did not show any sign of stress and the villagers and their spiritual leaders in the site that received the monkeys accepted and tolerated their presence. Moreover, after four years the translocation took place, the monkey population in Vrindaban remained low and the conflict were resolved.
In spite of this successful programme, translocation can cause numerous problems in the case of carnivores, for example translocation into areas already occupied by individuals of the same species can lead to aggression and infanticide and a much higher death rate.
In most cases the conflict cannot be avoided and translocation does not seem to be an immediate and straightforward solution. However, it is encouraging that the conflict can be minimised through good management practises and housekeeping principles, such as livestock protection at night, property guarding or avoidance of a predator’s home territory. It is also reassuring that some of the successful measures involve low technology tools and low cost approaches such as pens with chain- link ceilings, man-made salt ponds, fladry barriers and insurance programmes. The strength of this analysis lies in the fact that all the strategies have been tested in the field and their evaluation originates from practical experimentation; the weakness is that it overlooks some management options like chilli crop barriers, fire (fires lit on periphery of fields or smoke from burning) or missiles (stones, spears).
The most sensible approach to addressing HWC is to implement a combination of two different approaches: short-term mitigation tools along with long-term preventative strategies, so as to reduce the current problems while fostering the rapid development and use of innovative approaches to address future issues and eradicate the problem. When low environmental impact strategies and traditional low cost deterrents are not successful, some invasive approaches, such as regulated harvest, wildlife translocation or human relocation may need to be implemented. Among the innovative strategies discussed in this chapter, electric fencing, natural resource use compensation systems, CBNRMS, incentive and insurance programmes seem to be the most sustainable.
Irrespective of the approaches adopted, there is a need to test them against any possible side effects, such as the restriction of an animal’s requirements, effects on non-target species and the environment as a whole and last but not least its cost-effectiveness. The best approach should ensure the participation and involvement of local populations, as their goodwill and support in wildlife conservation plays a crucial role for preventing and mitigating HWC. Co-management by rural villagers, researchers and local governing bodies has proved to be the wisest strategy for nature conservation. A local community's acceptance of the problem is essential, because these case studies suggest that, although HWC can be reduced it will never be fully eliminated.
CONCLUSION
This report supports the broadly recognised inference that the human wildlife conflict is escalating and illustrates that it is a worldwide issue, spanning Asia, with elephants destroying agricultural fields, tigers and leopards preying on domestic animals; Africa with numerous carnivores killing cattle and monkeys threatening the food security of rural people; and Europe and North America, with wolves and bears taking livestock and damaging property. The conflict is not restricted to specific geographical regions or climatic conditions but is common to all areas where wildlife and dense human populations have to coexist and share limited resources.
It is obvious that the problem is collective but there is an important distinction between the level of vulnerability of agro-pastoralists in developing countries and that of well-off inhabitants in developed nations. Smallholder subsistence farmers face potentially catastrophic losses. They can lose an entire season’s crop production in one single raid by big and voracious animals such as elephants, chimpanzees, baboons or bush-pigs. Their capacity to cope with losses varies even among farmers inhabiting the same region; as the researcher points out the level of impact of crop depredation on rural villagers of the edge of Kibale National Park, in Uganda, depends on farm size. The owners of large farms can employ guards or create a crop buffer zone to separate vulnerable yields from the forest edge, through cultivating less palatable plant species or using the land for pasture. These options are not available to subsistence farmers, who have less choice in their land use and can not afford to pay for guards.
This report reviewed most of the management practices that are being applied under diverse demographic, economic and social circumstances. It highlighted the costs, benefits and constraints of each option and intended to clarify which techniques could be best implemented under specific conditions.
The overall picture is very multifaceted: some management practices turned out to be unsustainable (physical barriers around reserve borders), others need to be heavily subsidised (financial compensation system) and others are very costly and complicated devices to use (MAC, EC), which will not be affordable to most individuals in disadvantaged rural communities. On the other hand, the review of the case studies demonstrated that the conflict can be reduced through good management practices (livestock protection at night, pens with chain-link ceiling), traditional husbandry techniques (guarding and the use dogs) as well as low technology tools, based on local experience (man-made salt ponds) and low cost approaches (fladry barriers). Obviously, some of these practices are only effective with some animal species and need to be combined with other methods.
There is also a need to bring to light and disseminate innovative practices such as electric fencing, insurance programmes, compensation systems (natural resources) and CBNRMS that have proved to be practical and cost effective in the field. Further experimentation should be undertaken to develop additional science-based techniques and innovative approaches that could make a meaningful contribution to resolving the long-term problem.
In conclusion, the simultaneous application of different management practices and the implementation of those designed for local species are recommended. There is no single solution to the conflict and every preventative and mitigative strategy should be empirically tested for its cost- effectiveness and possible impact on the ecosystem equilibrium before adoption.
The best scenario would imply integrated community development and wildlife conservation promoted by national park managers and supported by local populations. Community-based conservation should give indigenous people the right to limited and sustainable use of natural resources while promoting tolerance towards wildlife, responsible interaction with their natural environment and the recognition if the value of natural heritages. A 2003 researcher proved that rural villagers, who live in proximity to Waza National Park in Cameroon, appreciate nature’s intrinsic value and agree with the necessity to protect forests and their wildlife inhabitants for future generations. Their positive attitude towards conservation arises from the use of natural resources such as regulated harvesting of non-timber forest products, the use of waterholes and fishing.
Local peoples’ participation is now widely advocated in development and conservation, participatory protected area management is becoming increasingly common throughout Africa and the development of a system of returning benefits through resource exploitation is often advocated in multiple areas surrounding the parks. The most sustainable approach should ensure the development of a local economy based on wildlife and revenue collection from nature reserves, as well as a reduction in the dependence of rural communities on agriculture and farming. In order to enhance protected area effectiveness, conservation should be based on sound scientific knowledge, practical local indigenous knowledge and collaboration.
Protected areas and the presence of wild animal populations inflict costs on local communities and can erode local support and tolerance. In turn, indigenous people can develop a negative attitude towards reserves and wildlife, exacerbating the conflict and undermining conservation efforts. In order to break this cycle, there is a need to protect rural livelihoods, reduce their vulnerability, and counterbalance losses with benefits and foster community-based conservation. Both people and wildlife suffer tangible consequences and different stakeholders involved should commit themselves to tackle and resolve the conflict in the near future.