Impacts of human-wildlife conflict in developing countries

Abstract

This paper is aimed to investigate the driving forces for human-wildlife conflict in developing countries in order to develop conservation strategies. Human-wildlife conflict has been occurring whenever an action by human or wildlife in a particular habitat. This problem has been in existence as long as wild animals and people shared the same resources. The expansion of human population into or near to areas inhabited by wildlife and modification of the natural environments for agricultural activities escalate human-wildlife conflict. The problem of human-wildlife conflict is frequently reported in developing countries in the form of crop raiding, livestock depredation, predation on managed wild animal species or killing of people. Crop damage is the most prevalent form of human-wildlife conflict across African continent. Hippopotamuses, baboons, rodents, grivet monkey, squirrels, porcupines, pigs, deer, elephants, spotted hyenas, leopards, and lions are some of the reported wildlife that affects community livelihoods in developing countries. Crop loss and livestock depredation by wildlife is contributing the problem of food insecurity and poverty in developing countries. Human wildlife conflict hinders the conservation of animals in the natural habitats and poses the greatest challenges to the persistence and survival of wildlife. Therefore, all concerned stakeholders will work to minimize the existing humanwildlife conflict through developing human-wildlife conflict management techniques.

Keywords: Crop loss,crop-raiding, developing countries, human-wildlife, livestock depredation