Perception of risk and vulnerability of agricultural households to human-wildlife conflicts around Pendjari Biosphere Reserve in Northern Benin

Human-wildlife conflicts are any interactions between humans and wildlife with a negative impact for both parties. They are more frequent around protected areas like Pendjari Biosphere Reserve, an important component of a vast transnational complex W-Arly-Pendjari, straddling Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. The governance of the Pendjari Biosphere Reserve has progressively shifted from governmental governance to shared governance exercised by CENAGREF and then recently (May 2017) to delegated governance to African Park Network through a public-private partnership. Around this protected area, agriculture and livestock farming are the main activities of the local communities and wild animals sometimes cause damage to people's fields or livestock. This research aims at characterizing human-wildlife conflicts, analyzing how local populations perceive them and how they affect local populations’ households. The analytical framework is based on the Turner Vulnerability framework (TVUL) and includes the theory of externalities, the theory of reasoned and planned action and the actor-oriented approach. Data were collected from documentation, interviews and a questionnaire survey of 245 informants in January and February 2017 during the CENAGREF governance period and 320 informants from July to December 2019 during the African Parks governance period. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the distribution of human-wildlife conflicts and the Participatory Risk Mapping (PRM) to explore local people’s perception of risk of human-wildlife conflicts. Based on Turner Vulnerability framework, our research framework, we use the Livelihoods Vulnerability Index (LVI) to assess the vulnerability of local populations to human-wildlife conflicts. Human-wildlife conflicts were the most important risk people reportedly experience with their agricultural and pastoral activities around Pendjari Biosphere Reserve. Their main manifestations are crop raiding and livestock predation. The most damaged crops were maize (15 %), cotton (15 %), millet (14 %), and sorghum (29 %) and baboon was the most important crop raiding species (61 % of depredation cases). Regarding livestock, pigs (25 %) and sheep/goats (23.1 %) were the most attacked animals while hyena was the most important predator reported (40.6 % of attacks). To reduce these damages, farmers used several measures such as guarding (82%), scarecrows (64.5 %), and fires on the outskirts of the fields (67.3 %). Herders mostly used livestock guarding (12.7 %) and fires or torchlight lit in the enclosures during the night (8.6 %). These measures were not efficient to avoid the damages but they did reduce them. Crop raiding causes, for an average farmer, an annual financial loss ranging from $94.64 in farms of sorghum to $311.8 in farms of cotton. Compared to the annual minimum salary in Benin, these numbers are considerable. The heavy toll of human-wildlife conflicts and the relatively low level of effectiveness of mitigation measures clearly reveal the vulnerability of agricultural households bordering protected areas. With a Livelihood Vulnerability Index of 0,4, local populations are globally vulnerable to human-wildlife conflicts but they show greater vulnerability on the Food (0,5) and Social Network (0,53) components. Pendjari Biosphere Reserve is located in the department of Atacora in north Benin which has a record of high prevalence of porverty and food insecurity among households. These household food and economic insecurity trends in this area of Benin could likely be exacerbated by wild animal destruction of local staple crops, cash crops and livelihood assets. Also, since 2019 jihadist attacks are frequent in the North of Benin. And the social vulnerability of the population can aggravate the phenomenon of jihadism as vulnerable people are the breeding ground for terrorist groups to recruit members. Then, it appears important to reinforce the mitigation measures, develop income-generating activities in order to reduce local populations food and economic insecurity and social vulnerability. This will contribute to improving human-wildlife coexistence and security around Pendjari Biosphere Reserve.(Faculté de sciences économiques, sociales et politiques) -- FUSL, 202