Journal Article

A quantitative assessment of the indirect impacts of human-elephant conflict

Sampson, Christie, Huang, Qiongyu, Tonkyn, David, Rodriguez, S. L., Leimgruber, Peter

2021

Overview

Human-wildlife conflict has direct and indirect consequences for human communities. Understanding how both types of conflict affect communities is crucial to developing comprehensive and sustainable mitigation strategies. We conducted an interview survey of 381 participants in two rural areas in Myanmar where communities were exposed to human-elephant conflict (HEC). In addition to documenting and quantifying the types of direct and indirect impacts experienced by participants, we evaluated how HEC influences people’s attitudes towards elephant conservation. We found that 99% of participants suffered from some type of indirect impact from HEC, including fear for personal and family safety from elephants and fear that elephants will destroy their home. Despite experiencing moderate levels of indirect impacts from HEC at the community level, participants expressed attitudes consistent with supporting future elephant conservation programs.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Attitudes / Biology and Life Sciences / Community / Conservation / Conservation biology / Data collection / Ecology and Environmental Sciences / Education / Elephants / Evaluation / Fear / Human-animal relationships / Interviews / Likert scale / Mitigation / People and Places / Perceptions / Questionnaires / Rural areas / Social Sciences / Wildlife / Wildlife conservation / Wildlife management / Zoology