Human-Wildlife co-existance
HUMAN-ELEPHANT CO-EXISTENCE ALONG MIKUMI AND NYERERE NATIONAL PARKS
- Monitoring Elephant-community interaction
- Awareness-raising
- Support for mitigation and adaptive strategies
As the consequence of human population growth which has increased demand for land, human-elephant conflict has been a growing issue to both conservation and development sector.
Demand for agricultural land is the main driver for people to live and farm close to wildlife protected areas while at the same time big animals like elephants need large area for them to survive.
This interaction have negative impacts to both people and elephants like life loss, crop loss, poaching and charcoal production
In harmonizing the situation, ECOWICE works with both the community and park management through monitoring how species interact with the community and developing means for reducing conflicts.
Currently, there is ongoing monitoring of elephant interaction with the community that has resulted in the development of mitigation strategies. The community has been supported to understand elephant behavior that could help to face elephant challenges, they are also supported to grow crops that elephants don't like, they also use beehive fence to scare elephants away from their crops.
Through that; the community is now aware of how they can live with elephants without losing their life or crops, hence their support toward elephant conservation is high.
