HUMAN-ELEPHANT CONFLICT ASSESSMENT

A sociological survey for the evaluation of the efficacy of present mitigation measures and people’s attitudes towards elephants were conducted. To achieve this, 500 interviews in 50 villages were conducted in and around the region and in the process, we were able to build community support for elephant conservation. In each village, we interviewed 10 individuals from different households. We collected additional information during the interviews such as the occupation of the respondent, current mitigation measures used by respondents, and the distance of their paddy field from protected areas.
We have also successfully conducted a mapping of the nature and extent of elephant-human conflicts across this landscape, A heat map on a scale of 0 to 4 depicting the human-elephant conflict intensity has been prepared, with 0 being elephants never visiting the village and 4 being elephants visiting the village most of the year.

Inferences from the ongoing project:

During the course of the project, it became evident that current mitigation measures adopted by the people are not adequate for long term elephant conservation, thus depicting the need for the development of better technology for mitigation purposes.
Through the respondents, we could determine that elephants were highly active during the night as compared to during the day as the chances of interaction with humans were very less during the night, and crop fields could be raided by elephants with little to no resistance from humans.
Out of 500 interviews, 376 respondents had agriculture as their primary or secondary occupation. However, we found that agriculture, as a livelihood had no impact on their perception towards elephants. Most of the respondents demonstrated a dual perception towards the elephants. They agreed that elephants keep the forest healthy and help maintain an ecological balance, but they felt that when elephants come out of the forest, they damage agricultural fields and properties and end up taking lives. Only 2.26% of the respondents' attitudes towards the elephant were completely negative.