Human-Wildlife Conflicts patterns and underlying impacts: A systematic review

Abstract

Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is a term often misunderstood, with most people restricting its use to the damage to humans and property by wildlife and not vice versa, thereby leading to a biased approach to its resolution. HWC is rising, primarily due to a growing human population and associated habitat destruction. The lack of critical analyses in the HWC challenge has led to inadequate and poor responses. A systematic review of HWC across India is necessary to understand the trends, hotspots, and significant species involved, develop appropriate mitigation measures, and propose a policy-level framework to minimise its impact on humans and wildlife. For this review, around 246 papers from the past ten years (2012–2022) were collected which mentioned HWC in their keywords. After screening the papers, 172 papers published in 166 different journals were found to be relevant to the present study. Among those 172 papers, most HWC-related papers have been published in Karnataka, followed by Kerala and West Bengal. The highest conflict species seems to be the elephant, followed by wild pigs and leopards. Some other species involved in conflicts are tiger, nilgai, macaque, etc. More focused research is needed on HWC to analyse every factor influencing the rise of HWC in India. Introducing an interdisciplinary approach and involvement of multiple stakeholders could help better manage HWC in India.