Assessing the effect of multi-species involved in conservation conflicts

Conservation conflicts (i.e. when parties clash over differences in their objectives and when one party asserts, or at least is perceived to assert, its interests at the expense of another) are one of the most challenging problems facing conservation researchers and practitioners. Conflicts are detrimental for the conservation of species and costly to the economic development and wellbeing of local people. Although they are widespread around the world and involve in many cases multiple species within the same area, multi-species studies are rare, which ultimately underestimate the magnitude of conflicts. In this study, we assessed the spatiotemporal patterns of incident reports for multiple “problem species” in Northern Botswana. In the eastern Okavango Delta Panhandle, subsistence farmers share and compete for resources with a wide range of megafauna including elephants, hippopotamus, lions, leopards, crocodiles, wild dogs and hyenas. All these species have different ecological needs (e.g. species distribution, migration, diet) as well as different conservation statuses. This is why in many cases their interaction and potential conflict with people’s livelihoods are approached and managed separately. Using incident reports collected by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP, Botswana) since 2008 we identified trends in incident reporting for different species across the year within the study area. We found that elephants and lions were the most reported species across all villages. However, both species showed contrasting seasonal patterns, with elephant incidents being mainly prevalent during the wet season (November-May) and lions during the dry season (June-October). Our findings suggest that farmers in the Eastern Panhandle are affected by local wildlife throughout the year, which potentially could impact the perception local communities have towards wildlife. We highlight the importance of investigating the effect of multiple species involved in conflicts in terms of management, as well as their potential effect on people’s attitude towards wildlife.peerReviewe