Elephants (Loxodonta africana) raiding crops around Tanzanian national parks threaten farmers' lives and livelihoods, thus contributing to negative local attitudes towards wildlife. As a result, there is often tacit support for poaching among local communities, and elephants suffer through reprisal poisoning or wounding or through being shot as 'problem animals' by game wardens. Human-elephant conflict (HEC) is growing as the wildlands that still have elephants, especially around national parks, reserves, and wildlife corridors, are increasingly being settled. Sisal string fences soaked in engine oil mixed with ground chili (Capsicum spp.) can dissuade elephants from entering fenced fields. For the last nine years, farmers around Mikumi National Park in Tanzania have been constructing these fences around ripening crops, and there have been no incidents of fences being broken by elephants. Community-based organizations (CBOs) that manage members' savings through village micro-credit associations help ensure the costs of materials and fence construction are met. Chili fences are rapidly becoming widespread, facilitated through farmer-to-farmer exchanges where teams of farmers demonstrate both the fences and the CBOs needed to support the project. We argue that promoting the use of chili fences, coupled with supporting CBOs, as a best practice within communities and government programs and budgets, will help reduce the need for HEC compensation, protect livelihoods, empower rural women, increase the food security of rural farmers, and help conserve elephants.

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Protected areas across the range of the African savannah elephant Loxodonta africana are increasingly being surrounded and isolated by agriculture and human settlements. Conflicts between people and crop-raiding elephants regularly lead to direct reprisals and diminish community support for conservation. We report on field trials in northern Tanzania that employed a new, humane way for wildlife managers to move elephants away from conflict zones, from distances of > 100 m, thereby enhancing the safety of wildlife managers, farmers and elephants. We deployed 10 unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) piloted by five trained teams of wildlife managers in the Tarangire–Manyara and Serengeti ecosystems. Game Scouts deployed the drones opportunistically during crop-raiding events at the peak of the maize ripening period in 2015 and 2016. In 100% of trials (n = 51) elephants responded to the presence of a drone by departing rapidly from crop fields (n = 38) and settlements (n = 13). The cost of five teams responsible for 617 km2 in Tarangire–Manyara was estimated to be USD 15,520 for 1 year, and all drones remained operational for the duration of the study. The initial success of this tool warrants further testing of the utility of small unmanned aerial vehicles as part of the toolbox for wildlife managers and communities dealing with high levels of conflict with wildlife.

Crop damage is a serious source of conflict in communities adjacent to protected areas. Data on crop raiding were collected through questionnaires in villages at different distances from the Serengeti National Park in northern Tanzania. Multiple response analyses were used to calculate the frequencies of the types of crops damaged, the levels of crops growth when damaged and the estimated economic losses caused per household. The results indicate that crop raiding differed significantly on farms along a distance gradient from the protected area. Baboons were reported to be the most destructive wild animals, followed by elephants, which were destructive especially in the villages located near the protected area. Wild animals caused significant economic losses for households. We recommend further studies on the crop yield gap caused by crop-raiding wild animals and human-primate conflict in communities around protected areas. For effective protection of crops from wild animals, we recommend that local communities adopt a combination of methods to reduce the levels of crop raiding.

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