HUMAN-ELEPHANT CONFLICT

Elephants are large roaming creatures that require a lot of space. With less space to move about due to urbanization, elephants often have to co-exist with humans in tightly congested areas leading to human-elephant conflicts.

Elephants often trample onto farms or plantations, especially when farmers plant crops that are part of an elephant’s diet, causing damage to crops and consequently loss of income to farmers and plantations owners. On October 28, 2017, it was reported in the news that a lone elephant had wandered into a village and destroyed their crops, affecting the villagers’ incomes and causing many of them to be fearful and too scared to return to their farms. In the face of such threats from elephants, villagers can potentially be driven to a point where they would retaliate by shooting or killing elephants they perceive as problematic. In Indonesia, dozens of elephants are being poisoned by oil plant plantation owners. The villagers or farmers would develop negative attitudes towards elephants, resulting in them being less empathetic to the plight of elephants’ declining populations as well.

In addition, with increasing settlements around forested areas, there is a disruption of elephants’ movement corridor. Not only are the spaces for elephants and other wildlife dwindling, the remaining spaces are also becoming increasingly fragmented. Having roads or train tracks in between available natural spaces would further confine the elephants to an already limited space.

Overgrazing by other livestock that humans rear for livelihood would also severely reduce the food source that elephants have, especially in an area with already limited space. Not only would the lack of vegetation lead to soil erosion, it further impends the growth of any more grass, affecting elephants’ food source.