Mitigation strategies against human-wildlife conflict as perceived by various stakeholders in the state of Assam

Abstract

Conflict had been occurring between the humans and wildlife since the beginning of time. It had been a major issue that had an adverse negative impact which had resulted in an imbalance in nature. The study was conducted with five stakeholders which consisted of farmer, development worker, forest official, NGO and experts were taken for the purpose of studying the mitigation strategies adopted by them. The main basis of human wildlife conflict was related to destruction of cultivable land, effect of livelihood on agriculture, livestock and allied sectors, loss of life and property and which had interfered with the rights of the individuals or groups, attributable directly or indirectly with animals. The objective of the study was to delineate the mitigation strategies adopted during human wildlife conflict. Elephant was the most frequent animal which came in direct conflict with the farmers and they termed that their population was highly increasing (95.62%) over the years. Since farming (87.50%) was their main source of livelihood therefore they termed that there was 100 percent crop and livestock damage was done and the animals mostly attacked at an interval of 15 days (88.12%) mostly at dusk (44.37%) for more than 1 hour (72.50%). 55.56 percent of the respondents opined that the crop rice was attacked during maturity stage for which they shifted to tea cultivation. The crops damaged over the last three years were rice, tea, vegetables banana, areca nut and colocasia with the highest being damaged was rice with an estimated value of Rs.430500 in the sampled villages. Similarly, the livestock affected were cattle, duck, goat, poultry, pig and buffalo with the highest being affected was cattle at Rs.250000 in the sampled villages. All the farmers (100%) suggested that they used readily available sources such as mashall, crackers and smoke to cope with the situation and different stakeholders suggested different ways to mitigate human wildlife conflict.