Human Wildlife Conflict Mitigation
Solutions to solving human-wildlife conflict benefits affected livestock owners and rural farmers as well as animal populations. Surrounding Hwange, this pertains mainly to human-elephant or human-predator conflict.
It is the cattle herders who graze their livestock inside the Park or in other protected wildlife areas that are responsible for causing a large percentage of human-wildlife conflict incidents.
It is these cattle herders that tempt and tantalise predators like hyena and lion with the irresistible scent and sound of “easy meat” grazing within the National Park. Ultimately, when predators follow these herds out of the Park, it is these same cattle herders that feign innocence and shock when their cattle are preyed upon, and angrily demand problem animal control and compensation.
To help prevent these incursions, work is centered around two main goals:
- Assisting rural communities with Human-Wildlife Conflict mitigation and at the same time imparting and teaching skills to reduce over-dependence on ZimParks for assistance in Human-Wildlife Conflict matters.
- Working with local rural communities living adjacent to HNP to create conservation awareness and fostering a sense of ownership of the natural resources.
Managing the conflict between humans and wildlife
Building Cattle Troughs
Illegal Wood Poaching
Snared and Butchered Kudu
Elephant Snared
Removing Snare
Recovered Elephant
Lion Predation
There are a number of measures that can be shown to be effective in reducing human-wildlife conflict, many of them simple and inexpensive:
- Deployment of scouts in vulnerable areas to monitor movement of potential problem wild animals. Maintaining a presence in affected areas to gather accurate and up to date information enables quick reaction.
- Arming scouts with vuvuzelas and deploying them in vulnerable areas to chase away lions with assistance from affected villagers/ communities.
- Arming villagers with firecrackers and training them on safe and effective use to discourage elephants from crop raiding.
- Use of burning chilli bricks and chilli strings to deter elephant presence in the communities.
- Encouraging villagers to grow their own chillies helps to reduce costs.
- Demonstrating the building of robust cattle pens and raised goat pens, to protect them from predation, without decimation of local forests.
- Demonstrating how livestock grazing in wildlife areas draws predators to easy prey in the villages and encourages depredation.
- Pushing for formation of Wildlife Clubs in schools. Pupils get valuable exposure to wildlife and conservation firsthand. Cultivating the spirit of conservation in our youth early in life is key.
Assistance with Domestic Water Supplies:
- In areas where water for livestock is scarce, encouraging villagers to create water troughs at boreholes to share water with domestic livestock avoids the need for domestic herds to wander into wildlife areas in search of water.
- In dire situations, assistance with funds to drill boreholes for villages close to the park avoids communities from herding cattle into wildlife areas using the search for water as an excuse. Snaring of game is inevitable when herd boys accompany cattle into protected areas.
- Assisting with repairs to neglected bush pumps in villages to alleviate water shortages. These communities could be encouraged to establish vegetable gardens if sufficient water becomes available thus reducing the need to poach to supplement food supplies.
These potential actions stand to benefit both the people in the communities as well as conserving our precious wildlife.
