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What Is The Mitigation Of Human Elephant Conflict?

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Here we review and discuss different mitigation techniques that have been suggested and are practiced at varying scales. We also seek to provide recommendations that we think are of considerable concern in the future in lights of projected climate change. Providing compensation to the affected people has been a common practice to offset economic losses incurred by the people in most of the elephant range countries. Although compensation schemes temporarily suppress the anti-wildlife sentiments; it, however, does not appear to be a viable solution. It is largely because of severe criticism mainly due to insufficient amount provided, cumbersome procedural process with added transaction cost, ineffective governance, lack of transparency, lack …show more content…

2009, Jadhav and Barua 2012, Barua et al. 2013). Hence, the effectiveness of these uncompensated costs and hidden impacts in lessening the conflict in the long term are questionable as they do not address the underlying cause and merely transfer the risk from one spatial location to the next (Sukumar 1989, 1991). Similarly, trenches of considerable depth and width, and electric fences are the common physical barriers used to curb the elephants from entering farmland and human settlements. Although their effectiveness are largely unexplored in Asia, they however require a considerable cost for establishment and maintenance. Given their high cost for establishment and maintenance accompanied by a varying spatial pattern of crop raiding (Sukumar 1989, Hoare 1999, Kioko et al. 2008, Perera 2009), their applicability and feasibility in fragmented habitats within a human dominated landscape with a large area demanding protection from elephants is dubious (Wijayagunawardane et al. 2016). Moreover, these physical barriers further isolate the already fragmented populations disrupting their migration and gene flow with a negative feedback on long-term survival. Additionally, reports from Africa do not deliver an encouraging story to a long-term effectiveness of economically costly electric fences. Evidences suggest that

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