Humans 'must be better neighbours' to save elephants

JULY 8, 2019

by University of Reading

Habitat loss as a result of a human population boom in Africa could threaten the very existence of elephants there, according to a new study.

African elephants face a range of threats in the 21st century. Poaching for their ivory tusks, habitat loss, human-elephant conflict and climate change have all contributed to their numbers falling by 60 percent since 1970. Given the limited resources that are available for conservation, it is crucial to identify and prioritise the most significant and immediate threats.

The new study, published today in the journal Conservation Science and Practice, compared the impacts of climate change and habitat loss on elephants inhabiting the Amboseli ecosystem in southern Kenya.

Scientists from the University of Reading, in collaboration with colleagues at the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, simulated how food resources would be affected under several habitat loss and climate change scenarios to predict their impact on elephant numbers by the end of the century. They concluded that habitat loss was the greatest threat to Amboseli elephants in this area, and that humans can play a key role in limiting this threat.

Vicky Boult, from the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading and lead author of the study, said: "More greenhouse gas emissions may bring more rainfall to this part of Africa, which would actually increase the food available to elephants. Habitat loss however, will reduce the area, and thus the food. This makes habitat loss the most immediate threat to Amboseli elephants.

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The human-elephant conflict in India's tea state Assam

By Navin Singh KhadkaEnvironment correspondent, BBC World Service, Assam

23 January 2018

Growers of world-famous Assam tea are encroaching into forests, fuelling a conflict between elephants and humans, locals and authorities in the Indian state have said.

Officials blame small-scale plantations for most of the encroachment but local leaders told the BBC there was no up-to-date land survey of bigger tea "estates" either.

A major association of tea companies has rejected the accusation, arguing that forest coverage is in its members' interest.

However, a study by the Indian government has found that tea gardens are contributing to Assam's deforestation.

"The decrease in forest cover of the state is mainly due to encroachment in forest land, biotic pressure, rotational felling in tea gardens and shifting cultivation," the environment ministry's State of the Forest report said in 2015.

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Problem elephants moved from Laikipia to Meru National Park

9 elephant bulls moved

July 2013. The Laikipia-Samburu ecosystem has the second largest population of elephants in Kenya making it a hotspot for human-elephant conflict. In order to mitigate this conflict, Ol Pejeta initiated an elephant monitoring programme in 2005 to identify habitual fence breakers so that appropriate management interventions could be undertaken. The monitoring is carried out by a skilled elephant tracker armed with GPS, binoculars and camera to check on every fence breakage or crop raid and store data in a specially designed database. Thanks to this system, the habitual fence breakers are well known.

Over the years, different intervention strategies such as collaring, de-tusking and even upgrading the electric boundary fence have been used to control fence breaking and crop raiding elephants within the conservancy. However, these interventions were not always effective as a few individuals continued to break fences and studies were carried out to find out why.

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Elephants relocated to the Maasai Mara

New farms causing human-elephant conflict

September 2012. 37 elephants have so far been trans-located from Kenya's Narok North District to the Maasai Mara in a bid to mitigate cases of Human - Elephant conflict in the area.

Unprecedented sub division of land and farming and new land uses incompatible with wildlife conservation have seen cases of human wildlife conflict rise in recent times. The exercise is targeting 150 elephants, and some 60 were moved in the first phase in November 2011.

Wheat farming
According to Dr. Shadrack Ngene, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) Elephant Program Coordinator, translocated elephants will be fitted with GSM/GPS collar chips to monitor and track their movements in their new habitat.

"Cases of human wildlife conflict have escalated in Narok that can be attributed to wheat farming now being practised in the area. The resident elephant population have been invading farms necessitating this translocation. Their translocation will greatly reduce conflict incidences," says Dr. Ngene. (Wildlife Extra questions whether the elephants have invaded farmers land, or if the farmers invaded the elephants land?)

Poachers arrested
Elsewhere, KWS rangers have impounded four vehicles, recovered four pieces of raw ivory, three rifles with 48 rounds of ammunitions and assorted poaching weapons in the past week across the country.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/mara-elephants.html

Human-elephant conflict escalates in Sri Lanka

Call for a long-term focus - not electric fences

January 2012: Plans to translocate elephants in Sri Lanka have been scrapped - to the delight of the Sri Lanka Conservation Society (SLCS). However, the charity remains concerned about how the country's elephant population is to be managed amid intensifying human-elephnt conflict on the island.

President Ravi Corea said: ‘There seems to be no definite plans as to how the current populations of elephants in Sri Lanka will be managed over the long term.

‘According to reports it seems the only solution that is still advocated by the Department of Wildlife to address the intensifying human-elephant conflict island-wide is to erect hundreds of kilometers of electric fencing.

Fences can stop elephants reaching vital resources

‘With the country on a development drive it becomes vitally important that we address issues such as human-elephant conflict and elephant conservation with a long-term focus, goals and objectives in mind.'

The SLCS argues that palliative efforts, such electric fences, are not a long-term solution especially if they are used to fence elephants in areas.

‘While electric fences can be effective there are limitations to their application and they are also hampered with issues in regard to their maintenance, operations and effectiveness,' said Ravi. ‘If an electric fence is not properly maintained it quickly becomes unoperational. Most importantly, if an electric fence is not properly planned and erected it could unnecessarily obstruct elephants from accessing vital resources.'

70 per cent of Sri Lanka's wild elephants are not in protected areasHuman-elephant conflict has transcended from just being a wildlife management problem to one of the worst environmental and rural social economic crises in Sri Lanka's Dry Zone. Seventy per cent of the island's wild elephant population live outside the Wildlife Protected Area network and so share land with rural people.

‘Unregularised land tenure has fragmented vast tracts of forests making it a nightmare to address environmental and socio-economic issues and concerns such as human-elephant conflict, poverty alleviation and rural youth unemployment,' said Ravi. ‘The Northwestern Province is a prime example.

'The elephants live in fragmented forests amidst a sea of humanity. Unfortunately, today many other areas are also quickly moving towards a similar situation.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/elephant-lanka2012.html