Conflicts in tropical landscapes

Question 1

What are consequences of Human-wildlife conflicts? Give examples

Answer 1

Death and injuries of humans
- Man-eating lion in Tanzania..

Crop damage
- Cocoa plants, elephant crop-raids

Attacks on domestic animals
- Wolves in Germany …

Disease transmission to people/livestock
- Ebola, rabies (vampire bats)

Property damage
- any example…

Competition for water

Question 2

What are causes of human-wildlife conflicts?

Answer 2

• Habitat loss/degradation/fragmentation
• Land use transformation
• Increasing tourism in nature reserves
• Increasing livestock (also within protected areas)
• Unbalanced predatory prey ratio
• Increasing wildlife population
  (ex: lions in Gir NAtional Park, India)

Question 3

What are consequences of these conflicts on wildlife? on humans?

Answer 3

Wildlife
- Short term: killing of individuals
- Mid-term: Eradication of local populations
- Long-term: major threat to wildlife conservation and overall biodiversity preservation

Humans
- Safety issues
- Food security
- Economic costs
- Social costs
- Politics and media

Question 4

What are some management options of human-wildlife conflicts?

Answer 4

Human management
- Communnity awareness (e.g. waste management, harvesting techniques)
- Compensation
- Indirect compensation schemes
- Insurance schemes
- Voluntary relocation of people

Guarding
- Patrols, guard animals, watchtowers

Fencing
- Creating a barrier (e.g. bee-hive fences)

Trenches
- At least 2m deep and 2m wide=> but fragmentation?

Crop management
- Choice of crop,avoidance of susceptible crops

Translocation

Lethal control
- Eg trophy hunting

Question 5

Can trophy hunting contribute to biodiversity conservation?

Answer 5

More land is conserved under trophy hunting than under National Parks
- Positive population impacts of well-regulated hunting
- Income for remote communities
- Lions actually far worse in regions w/o trophy hunting because of unregulated hunting
- Focusing on trophy hunting distracts attention from major threats

Question 6

What is the difference between land-sharing and land-sparing?

Answer 6

Land-sparing
- Protect natural land
- Intensify agricultural land around

Land-sparing
- Conserve species within agricultural systems
- Extensify agriculture, also at the cost of lower yields and more land needed

Question 7

Describe the human-human conflict concerning soy in the brazilian cerrado

Answer 7

A lot of land conflicts in Brazil… (land, water, drought, labor, mining, violence against local people)

Estrondo is a mega-farm in the BRazilian Cerrado Savanna
=> min of 200 000 ha
=> soy exported to EU and China

A lot of controversy around the farm. Conflict since earlier days:
- Allegations of slave labor
- Illegal deforestation
- Land grabbing
- Violence against local people (in 2019 private guards shot traditional community members)

First in 2017=> 43 000 ha rights to seven communities
in 2018=> court reduces area from 43 000 to 9 000, but corruption

Fencing and trenches=> blocking access of the traditional communities from grazing and water

400 people of 7 communities are encircled by soy and cotton fields, that are heavily sprayed with toxic pesticides and cause drinking water pollution

Question 8

Give and example of warfare and wildlife (human-human conflict)

Answer 8

Virunga National Park (DR Congo)

• Africain biodiversity hotspot
• UNESCO World heritage

In the last decade, more than 200 rangers killed (trying to protect the NP)

Confrontations between rangers and rebel groups
- Rebels generate income by protecting locals doing illegal logging, charcoal, fishing, kidnapping, …

Senkwekwe - male moutain gorilla, was killed as warning to park authorities to not further intervene with illegal poaching and charcoal activities