Author: Grace Malley

Publisher:

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

Growing human population and expanding geographic presence often forces wildlife and people into closer contact, frequently leading to adverse impacts on both human wellbeing and biodiversity. One of the most direct impacts is human-wildlife conflict (HWC), a growing challenge in the developing world. In Morogoro Region of south-central Tanzania, loss of crops and safety concerns due to elephants compromises livelihoods in many rural communities relying on subsistence agriculture. Drawing from land change and sustainability science, landscape ecology and social-ecological system theories and methods, this dissertation uses a case study of selected districts in the Morogoro Region to explore conflicts between humans and elephants. This area hosts parts of important protected areas and has a growing human population that is predominantly engaged in agriculture. The dissertation is organized around five main interrelated questions: The dissertation is organized around five main interrelated questions: i) What are the attitudes of the local subsistence farmers towards elephants and their conservation, and how has that changed over time? ii) What are the social-ecological determinants of human-elephant relationship in the study area? iii) How has land use/land cover (LULC) changed over the past 26 years in the study area? iv) What are the likely trajectories of LULC in the study area and what are the implications for human-elephant interactions? and v) What is the status of elephant habitat connectivity between protected areas in the study area, and how does it influence occurrences of HEC? Five major findings are highlighted: First, human-elephant conflict is affecting the relationship between people and elephants, revealing a shift in the conflict-coexistence continuum from positive to broadly negative. Second, LULC change is negatively affecting the landscape, particularly natural forests, and habitats. Third, in addition to natural drivers, such as slope and elevation, and spatial locations relative to existing cropland, social, economic and political decisions also influence LULC change. Fourth, cropland is likely to continue expanding in the future if the current rate of change continues, which may lead to increased human-elephant conflicts incidents. Finally, expanding human activities in the study area landscape has affected natural elephant migratory corridors to varying extent; with some corridors compromised more than others. This research provides a more complete explanation of the underlying complex human-environment interactions shaping the landscape in the study area. This is the first study to comprehensively assess landscape dynamics at multi-temporal scale. By simulating future LULC change, this research provides the opportunity to quantify and anticipate possible LULC changes in the study area, and prospects for changing human-elephant relationships in the future.