Conflicting attitudes towards elephants around the Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda

Abstract

Attitudes of local people to wildlife, and particularly to large animals, are an increasingly important element of conservation work, but attitudes may vary within a community according to gender, and prior experience of wildlife. Data were collected by questionnaire and informal interviews with 59 men and 57 women living on the southern edge of the Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda, to assess the influence of these factors in attitudes towards elephants, in an area from which they are now absent, and to conservation in general. It was hypothesized that prior experience of elephants might influence people's perceptions of them, and that this in turn might influence their attitudes towards the issue of elephant conservation. The results of this study did not generally support this. There was no evidence that people with prior experience of elephants were any more likely to support their conservation than were people who did not have prior experience of them. Within this community men and women expressed very different views as to the behaviour of elephants. Women were more likely than men to report that elephants were dangerous, irrespective of whether they had seen an elephant or not. Locally, conservation was considered to be particularly important and beneficial as a strategy because it 'should help ensure protection of people and their crops from marauding elephants and other animals'. Attitudes to, and expectations of, conservation as a strategy also varied between members of this community with respect to gender, but age and ethnic group were not good predictors of whether people were likely to be supportive of conservation issues or not.

Crop Protection and Its Effectiveness against Wildlife: A Case Study of Two Villages of Shivapuri National Park, Nepal

“…Issues such as loss of extraction rights and losses due to wildlife interferences and lack of or limited financial compensation have been highlighted as the root causes of conflict between the local communities and conservation programmes (Baral & Heinen 2007, Hill 1998, Karanth 2003. Similarly, illegal livestock grazing inside the park and transaction of forest products causes this imbalanced relationship (Studsord & Wegg 1995, Tamang & Baral 2008, Shrestha 1994.…”

Crop-raiding elephants and conservation implications at Way Kambas National Park, Sumatra, Indonesia

“…Conflict between wildlife and people is an important factor affecting the relationship between protected areas and the people who live near them (Studsrad & Wegge, 1995;Hill, 1998). In Asia, conflict between wild elephants Elephas maximus and people occurs to a varying extent throughout the elephant's range (Seidensticker, 1984;Sukumar, 1989).…”

“…Despite the ubiquity of elephant-human conflict and the relatively high cost of various elephant control strategies now employed, few studies have analysed the reasons for their success or failure, or the impact of different protected area boundary and land-use types adjacent to elephant habitat on crop raiding (Seidensticker, 1984;Sukumar, 1989;Newmark et al, 1994;Thouless & Sakwa, 1995;Hill, 1998;Naughton-Treves, 1998). This is particularly true on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, the only home of the Sumatran elephant E. m. sumatranus (Santiapillai & Jackson, 1990).…”

Local People’s Perceptions of Crop Damage by Common Langurs (Semnopithecus entellus) and Human-langur Conflict in Keshabpur of Bangladesh

“…Crop damage caused by raiding primates' is one of the most widespread and common examples of human-primate conflicts in areas where local people are mainly subsistence farmers (Hill, 1998). Conflicts between humans and primates are increasingly emerging as people transform primate habitats into agricultural fields and because of many other anthropogenic activities occurring around the habitats of these species.…”