Assessment of Human-Elephant Conflicts in Vilima Vitatu Village in Babati District: North Eastern Tanzania

Mallya, Idda Peter (2017) Assessment of Human-Elephant Conflicts in Vilima Vitatu Village in Babati District: North Eastern Tanzania. Masters thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

The study assessed the problem of Human-Elephant Conflicts in Vilima Vitatu village in Manyara region Tanzania. The study aimed at Determining the causes of human-elephant conflicts in Vilima Vitatu village,Examining the most common human-elephant conflicts occurring in Vilima Vitatu village, exploring the attitudes of local community at Villima Vitatu village towards the problem of elephants and evaluating the measures taken by local communities to mitigate existing human- elephant conflicts in Vilima Vitatu village. In this study both secondary and primary data were collected from a sample of 135 respondents who were selected randomly and purposively. Content analysis, Excel and SPSS were applied in data analysis generated for this study which involved both qualitative and quantitative data. The study revealed that the increase of human population and expanding agriculture activities has increased the potential for conflicts between elephants and human beings in Vilima Vitatu village. The majority of respondents had a negative attitude towards elephants. Elephants bring out the supreme fear to the local people because of their potential to damage large ranges of crops, property and cause injury and loss of life. HEC extremely affected the life standards of farming communities particularly by damaging crops, thereby leading to food insecurity in households. Consequently, farmers kill elephants or turn a blind eye to poaching when they reflect on the damage they have caused. In mitigating HEC, local people use different traditional methods to minimize them. These include: using fire around field margins or at animal access points to fields, disturbance, and guarding and use of chili as a buffer crop. The study suggested that, land use planning and law enforcement are necessary in resolving the HEC.

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