Human-wildlife conflicts are an increasing problem as human land use encroaches on wildlife habitats. Augmenting farmers' crops with orange trees through Project Orange Elephant has proven to be a simple and effective method for mitigating human-elephant conflicts in Sri Lanka. Similar endeavours could be applied elsewhere in the world. The problem The association between man and elephant in Sri Lanka is ancient and dates back nearly 5000 years. The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), being the largest terrestrial herbivore on the island, naturally requires large and diverse habitats to survive. With human expansion comes land modification, unfortunately to the detriment of elephants. The need of land for human use is an ongoing encroachment of the existing elephant habitat which is being diminished continuously and drastically. As a result, Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) is escalating every year in frequency and intensity. Annually~250 elephants and~80 people are killed due to HEC. Agriculture is the primary rural industry and rice is the staple food in Sri Lanka. Most rice cultivators are small-scale farmers and they are the people who suffer frequently from HEC. These farmers are hampered by poor economies and financial services, limited technology, fragmented landholding, and pre and post-harvest losses, and HEC. Conflict with elephants continue to increase due to inefficient landscape-level planning and land-use practices that are incompatible to coexisting with elephants. Currently, there are very few efforts to develop solutions to resolve the livelihood and environmental concerns resulting due to the negative interactions of agriculture and elephants. Since HEC being a result of agriculture-based land used practices incompatible with elephants, a large part of the solution to mitigate HEC must be based on the introduction of innovative land-use practices.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.