<b>People’s attitude towards wild elephants, forest conservation and Human-Elephant conflict in Nilambur, southern Western Ghats of Kerala, India</b>

Abstract

Conflict with elephants and subsequent economic losses negatively affect residents’ tolerance towards wild elephants. It is important to understand people’s attitude towards wildlife, especially Asian Elephants with an endangered status. A questionnaire survey was undertaken with 510 forest fringe residents of Nilambur North and South Forest Divisions, Kerala, to understand residents’ attitudes towards elephant conservation and Human-Elephant conflict. The majority of the villagers experienced psychological stress and fear associated with movement restriction and chances of encounters with elephants. Crop damage was perceived as the most serious issue, followed by injury or death by encounters with elephants. Elephants show a higher preference for raiding Jackfruit and Plantain than other crops. The conflict was caused more frequently by solitary elephants than by elephant herds. Elephants were mainly found near farm areas during late night (22:00–02:00 hr) and early night (20:00–22:00 hr). More than half of the residents were in favour of forest conservation owing to its ecological value. One-fourth of the respondents favoured forest conservation due to its extraction benefits such as collection of fuel wood and cattle grazing. Almost equal proportions of people have positive and negative attitudes towards elephants. In such instances, the possibility for a drastic shift towards negative attitudes following spontaneous elephant conflict events can be expected. Ecological awareness, interaction among stakeholders, and participatory maintenance of mitigation methods will possibly reduce conflict and contribute towards the coexistence of people and elephants in this human-dominated landscape.

Local Communities’ Attitudes and Support Towards the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in Southwest Botswana

“…While this relationship existed, however it is important for management to engage in active mobilization of outreach initiatives to educate communities about regulations and importance of the park's existence. Similar sentiments have been echoed elsewhere in Nepal [77], India [85], and South Africa [2,55,58].…”

“…Perhaps communities that were further away were less likely to see or appreciate the benefits of KTP, and hence lacked support. This finding contrasted with other studies as communities that were in close proximity to PAs were found to have negative attitudes due to human-wildlife conflicts along with crop and livestock depredation [78,85,86]. For example, in Uganda, farmers who lived closer to and had farms on the boundary of Kibale National Park expressed negative attitudes toward the park and staff [4].…”

“…The relationship between employment status and support for KTP area did not come as a surprise as several studies have demonstrated that benefits associated with jobs from PAs lead to strong support and positive attitudes by neighboring communities or villages [4,42,58]. When local people are able to accrue tangible benefits from a nearby PA, they tend to know more about it and develop positive attitudes and support [27,34,35,85]. However, in this study, it was identified that KTP created few jobs for members from the sampled communities.…”

“…Furthermore, almost a quarter of respondents were in favour of some portion of land from KTP should be allocated for agriculture. Such findings were not unique with respect to people-park relationship as negative attitudes have been associated with wildlife conflicts, lack of access to park resources, and perceived benefits [18,22,26,29,85], while positive attitudes have been influenced due to community and personal economic benefits largely derived from protected area tourism [4,[31][32][33][34]37,85].…”

“…Land ownership attitudes towards KTP had an influence on support. Land ownership relates to residents' attitudes with respect to accessibility for hunting and cattle grazing, land utilization for agriculture, and land grab for the park [25,85]. Land grab refers to the act of seizing land in an opportunistic or unlawful manner and has to do with the issue of buying or leasing of large scale piece of land by governments, individuals or multi-corporations at times without proper consultations with local people mainly in developing countries [25].…”