Human Elephant Conflict

Human-Elephant Conflict in Asia

Over the last 40 years, Asian elephants have experienced dramatic population declines and the remaining elephant populations now exist in fragmented and isolated pockets in 13 countries. These populations continue to decline due to habitat loss, hunting, and human–elephant conflict (HEC).  HEC is a major cause of mortality for Asian elephants. To ensure their long-term survival WCS is working on all fronts of elephant conservation, including testing novel ways of mitigating HEC in Indonesia, Lao PDR, and Thailand.

The Human Aspect
HEC arises in areas where elephants and people live close to each other and share resources, such as along the boundaries of national parks.  Elephants frequently leave these parks to enter agricultural areas where they eat rice, bananas, and other crops, and occasionally damage human dwellings. Unfortunately, not only are people’s livelihoods threatened, at times humans are injured and even killed from coming into close contact with crop raiding elephants.

Threats
To mitigate these conflicts, frustrated farmers will often engage in retaliatory killings. In addition “problem elephants” are sometime captured. In Sumatra for example, many elephants have been captured following crop raids and these animals are rarely returned to the wild. Such operations are expensive and can have a significant negative impact on elephant populations, sometimes leading to local extinctions, as well as presenting many animal welfare problems.

WCS Activities
WCS is at the forefront of collecting information on HEC in much of Asia, and we are doing all that we can to share these data with other NGOs, at scientific meetings, and in peer-reviewed literature. WCS currently has three HEC assessment and mitigation projects in Southeast Asia—in Indonesia, Lao PDR, and Thailand—and has also provided advice on assessing HEC in Cambodia and to other governmental and NGO projects in the region.  At the current project sites in SE Asia, we are measuring damage caused by elephants using objective sampling-based methods, as well as working closely with farmers and other local people to reduce elephant confrontations. Of particular interest is the use of chilies as a multi-purpose elephant deterrent. Our colleagues in Zimbabwe and Zambia, have thought farmers to grow very ‘hot’ chili peppers that can be used as ‘chemical weapons’ to deter elephants from entering crop fields. For example, farmers string chili-and-grease-coated rope fences around crop fields, causing elephants pain upon contact without causing them lasting harm. Chilies are also a valuable cash crop for the farmers. They are relatively easy plants to grow under a variety of conditions, and importantly, are not eaten by elephants. WCS elephant project staff from Lao PDR and Thailand recently participated in an HEC workshop in Zambia to learn about these novel techniques. The participants are now testing the chili-based elephant deterrents in their own countries.

Important Next Steps
While continuing to work on the above-mentioned activities, WCS will also be implementing the following:
· Working with the government of Malaysia to help develop a ‘holistic elephant conservation plan’ that will include a major HEC component;
· Collecting and publishing data on the effectiveness of Asian chilies as elephant deterrents;
· Developing one of the WCS sites in SE Asia as a demonstration site for HEC assessment and mitigation methods so that Asian wildlife managers can see HEC mitigation enacted in their own region.