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.
Law enforcement is crucial to curb unsustainable and illegal exploitation of plant and animal populations. This paper investigates the temporal pattern of illegal hunting activity and factors that influence the probability of Village Game Scouts (VGSs) arresting illegal hunters outside the Serengeti National Park (Tanzania). A total of 201 patrols were conducted during nine months between December 1998 and August 1999, and 96 illegal hunters were arrested. All illegal hunters originated from local villages within 41 km from the closest protected area border. During the dry season more illegal hunters were observed and more snares found during patrols, the increase coinciding with the annual arrival of the migratory herbivores. Logistic regression models indicated that the probability of being arrested varied seasonally and large groups of illegal hunters had a lower probability of being arrested by VGSs. This study shows that routine data collection by VGSs may provide useful baseline values from which illegal hunting activities in partially protected areas can be evaluated. Moreover, VGSs should be integrated into the existing law enforcement structure and given more resources, to ensure optimal efficiency.
Since 1993 the Serengeti Regional Conservation illegal hunting. Furthermore, cropping quotas are small, utilization of quotas low, and the level of community Project (SRCP) in Tanzania has conducted a game cropping operation (the commercial utilization of wild animal involvement limited. Illegal hunting was extensive around both Project and other villages. We suggest that SRCP populations in natural habitats) in areas immediately outside the Serengeti National Park in order to prodiscard the ineBcient cropping operation and instead concentrate on diversifying income opportunities for the vide adjacent villages with incentives to abstain from illegal hunting. In this study we carry out a comparative Project villages. economic analysis of the SRCP cropping operation and illegal hunting. The extent of illegal hunting was
Most ungulates in East African savannahs experience some form of human disturbance, such as direct pursuit (e.g. hunting and poaching), habitat degradation and competition with livestock. In many studies, the impact of human activities on wildlife is assessed through census counts, i.e. by estimating population sizes or densities, but also the social organisation of gregarious species can be affected. Using seven species of ungulates occurring in the Akagera Ecosystem, we compared grouping patterns (i.e. group sizes and compositions) of different group types (e.g. bachelor, all-female and mixed-sex groups) between sites situated inside a protected area, i.e. Lake Mburo National Park in Uganda and the adjacent Ankole Ranching Scheme (ARS), an unprotected area with intense human pursuit. Differences in group sizes were detectible in only a few cases, e.g. bachelor group size in common eland Tragelaphus oryx pattersonianus increased in the ARS, which may be advantageous due to increased vigilance. However, we found pronounced differences in group compositions in numerous species and for different group types, for example, in eland and waterbuck Kobus ellipsiprymnus defassa (i.e. in all group types), and topi Damaliscus lunatus jimela, oribi Ourebia ourebi and warthog Phacochoerus aetiopicus (all-female and mixed-sex groups). We discuss that continuous monitoring of grouping patterns of these (and other) species may be a valuable approach to detect 'subtle' effects of human nuisance even before an overall population decline can be observed.
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