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Abstract

Enlarging protected areas (PAs) network is critical to ensure the long-term viability of Asian elephants from habitat fragmentation and loss. While challenges are raised in the strictly government-managed policy of PAs networks due to the difficulties in persuading participation of stakeholders and meeting habitat requirements of the elephants. This study hypothesized that a co-managed policy is more plausible than the strict policy to enlarge PAs network for Asian elephants in a "developing" world. We identified the suitable habitat for Asian elephants using the maximum entropy modeling approach (MaxEnt) and examined the socioeconomic context of the habitat. The hypothesis was supported by our results: (1) Asian elephants prefer forest matrix with multiple land use (50% forest cover) rather than interior of large forest and roam in proximity of human habitations (mean distance 1.85 km); (2) suitability and the level of economic development of the habitats are negatively correlated (p = 0.04). Additionally, we provided an empirical study on corridor designing for the study area in China.