Lessons From 20 Years of Human–Elephant Conflict Mitigation in Africa

Abstract

The further refinement and re-assessment of human–elephant conflict (HEC) mitigation methods that has occurred since 2003 can be summarized into biological, physical, and governance categories. The most important distinction is between those measures applied against animals and used within the conflict zone, which are mostly used in the shorter term (except some fencing), and those measures working with people in the longer term, which rely heavily on official policy and administration often situated beyond the conflict zone. Effective HEC mitigation is difficult to understand and problematic to implement; it remains a complex package of apparently disparate measures that have to be used in combination and flexibly, at different scales, for both animals and people. Future HEC mitigation will be as much an art as a science, but since we now have a solid research foundation, we can proceed with some confidence to address the inherent sociopolitical difficulties.