Prevalence and Severity of Current Human-Elephant Conflicts in Amboseli Ecosystem, Kenya: Insights from the Field and Key Informants

Few animals elicit such drastically different human emotions, so do elephants. Elephants capture the affection of people but also inspire animosity and fear at the same time. This is because there are conflicts with people over space, critical resources, costs of damages and general insecurity to people. This paper examined field evidence and interviewed expert key informants on current intensity and frequency of human-elephants in Amboseli Ecosystem. According to them, generally, the most prevalent (score of 1 lowest to 10 highest) threats to elephants were competition for critical resources (6.32 plus or minus 0.44) followed by blocking of migration (6.24 plus or minus 0.46), harassment of elephants (4.83 plus or minus 0.75), poaching (4.57 plus or minus 0.37), and retaliatory killings (3.78 plus or minus 0.31). For threats that elephants pose to people, the most prevalent one was crop raiding (6.95 plus or minus 0.26) followed by environmental degradation (6.71 plus or minus 0.46), general insecurity to people (5.76 plus or minus 0.65), property destruction (5.16 plus or minus 0.41), injury and death to livestock (3.78 plus or minus 0.37), and injury and death to people (2.71 plus or minus 0.27). For the severity of the threats, the highest score was given to crop raiding whose average score was 7.90 plus or minus 0.24 followed by environmental destruction and degradation (6.89 plus or minus 0.43), injury and death to people (6.72 plus or minus 0.44), injury and death to livestock (6.36 plus or minus 0.50), property destruction (5.78 plus or minus 0.49), general insecurity to people (5.62 plus or minus 0.64). Severity levels followed the same trend or varied slightly. These drivers of human-elephant conflicts need to be addressed decisively to protect both people and elephants. There is a need to ensure local people's benefit from elephants through ecotourism investments such as wildlife sanctuaries, leasing critical space for elephants' dispersal on acceptable terms, through appropriate compensation schemes for elephant costs, and supporting local community wildlife rangers to prevent conflicts.