Research ArticleBalancing African Elephant Conservation withHuman Well-Being in Rombo Area Tanzania

Naza Emmanuel Mmbaga12 Linus Kasian Munishi1 and Anna Christina Treydte1

1Department of Sustainable Agriculture Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management School of Life Sciences and BioengineeringThe Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) PO Box 477 Arusha Tanzania2Department of Conservation Biology School of Biological Sciences The University of Dodoma PO Box 259 Dodoma Tanzania

Correspondence should be addressed to Naza Emmanuel Mmbaga doreennazayahoocom

Received 13 January 2017 Revised 9 April 2017 Accepted 9 May 2017 Published 31 May 2017

Academic Editor Philippe Henry

Copyright copy 2017 Naza Emmanuel Mmbaga et al This is an open access article distributed under the Creative CommonsAttribution License which permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work isproperly cited

The critical assessment of the nature and extent of human-elephant conflict (HEC) and its impact on conservation efforts areessential if we are to meet the challenges related to extinction of local population as well as loss biodiversity Conservationists needdetailed information onHEC in areas where these challenges prevail to improve intervention in the face of limited fundsresourcesWe assessed the status of HEC at Rombo area over the last six years Data based on household surveys focus group discussionsspatiotemporal analysis of site observations and reported incidents of damage within the last six years were mapped Out of allHEC cases analyzed the most were crop damage which took place at night and the damage was severe between May and Julywhen cereal crops were mature In upland areas of Rombo HEC hotspots were observed inside the protected forest plantationwhere local people cultivated their annual crops Cold spots concentrated in upland areas outside the protected forest plantationdominated by settlement and agroforestry less preferred by elephants In lowland areas HEChotspots were observed in village landsclose to the PAs within settlement and farmland dominated by seasonal crops This suggests that HEC management efforts suchas establishment of buffer zones should be directed around the areas adjacent to PAs and prevention should focus on cultivationof the alternative crops and farming systems that are less preferred by elephants Our study highlights the importance of using acombination of data collection techniques to pinpoint fine-scale HEC hotspots in a highly conflict-prone location of Tanzania

1 Introduction

Conflicts between humans and wildlife are widely increasingacross the world and are one of the greatest challenges toconservation of wildlife [1] The distribution and abundanceof African elephants (Loxodonta africana) is inextricablylinked to that of humans [2] and anthropogenic effects onthis keystone species pose serious challenges to wildlife man-agers local communities and elephants alike [3ndash5] Conflictbetween humans and elephants is a problem throughoutAfrica and often leads to damage of crops and livelihoodsnegative attitudes towards wildlife and sometimes humandeath and injuries [6] Human-elephant conflict (HEC) isnot a new phenomenon in Tanzania and has been a seriousproblem since 1920s prompting the establishment of an

elephant control department [7] However due to an expand-ing human population and the increasing encroachment ofpeople into elephant rangeHEC incidents greatly increased innumbers over recent times and have become amajor concern[8 9]

In dealing with HEC it is important that every single(local) situation be treated as unique regardless of the humanand elephant populationsThis is because such conflicts affectpeoplersquos livelihood differently depending on the socioeco-nomic and economic costs associated with the damage anddestruction leading to undesirable consequences to elephantconservation Elephant populations are at high risk (locallyand globally) due to poaching and habitat loss and com-pounded by human population pressures more local threatsand challenges arising fromHEC which have different effects

HindawiAdvances in EcologyVolume 2017 Article ID 4184261 9 pageshttpsdoiorg10115520174184261

2 Advances in Ecology

with different implications to the species conservation andmanagement

Tanzania (Mkomazi National Park [MNP] ChalaProtected Area [CPA] and Kilimanjaro National Park[KINAPA]) shares elephant populations with Kenya (TsavoWest National Park [TWNP] and Amboseli National Park[ANP]) [10 11] Rombo area is sandwiched between KINAPAand TWNP Historically elephants occurred throughout thislandscape until the establishments of PAs at the beginningof the 20th century and Rombo became an interface forelephant movements between these PAs [10] Subsequentlyman has frequently been in conflict with elephants in the arealargely because of expanding human populations demandfor settlement and crop cultivation lands The managementof elephant populations and their conflicts with people hasbeen a matter of key concern and the mortality of unfencedpopulations remained high [12 13] This district also isknown to have rich agroecological potential challenged byHEC [14] However up to now no research on HEC has beenconducted in this area and Romborsquos potential as a buffer zonefor conservation is not known Thus a critical assessment ofthe nature and the extent of HEC and its evaluation in termsof its impact on conservation efforts are essential if we areto meet the challenges related to wildlife conservation andbiodiversity loss in this area Conservationists need to havethis information at a fine spatiotemporal scale in areas wherethese challenges prevail to improve the intervention in theface of limited fundsresources

Few attempts have beenmade up to now to produce a spa-tiotemporalmodel which interprets the interactions betweenpeople and elephants and predicts patterns of HEC in AfricaOne key prevailing model that predicts spatial patterns ofHEC [3 15] proposes that while temporal patterns of HECare relatively predictable ability to predict whereHEC occurshas often not been possible For instance while predictingwhere crop raiding will occur is possible predicting wherehuman death or injury will occur is difficult due to variationsin human and elephant population and changes in landusecover [3]While HEC incidents have been predicted witha spatial relationship at a coarse (large landscape sim1000 km2)scale [3] our study encompasses interviews site observationand spatial analysis to investigate the nature and extentof HEC in Rombo area in an area covering half this size Thisstudy therefore aimed at answering the following questions(1) Which animal species interact with people and whatrole does the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) play inrelation to crop raiding and humanlivestock damage (2)Where and when do the human-elephant conflict (HEC)incidents occur in Rombo area (3) What is the trend ofHEC over time and what are potential mitigation measuresbeing used by the local communities (4) Where are thepossible HEC hotspot areas and can they be predicted Thefindings of this study will greatly help in proposing bettermanagement actions by the key stakeholders (governmentconservationists and local people) so as to attain elephantconservation and livelihood development

2 Material and Methods

21 Study Site Our study site was Rombo area in North EastTanzania 3∘091015840S and 37∘331015840E [14] which lies between threeprotected areas namely KINAPA on the northwest and CPAand TWNP on the southeast (Figure 1) covering approxi-mately 479 km2 In this area incidences of HEC have beenreported and seem to have been associated with land usecover changes over the past thirty years [16] Our mainfocus was on three divisions (MengweMashati and Tarakea)where most HEC cases had been reported over the recentdecade Annual rainfall varies with elevation and expo-sure ranging from 200mm at 800masl in the lowlands to3000mm at 2100masl on the settlement area borderingKINAPA Rainfall is bimodal with long rains from March toJune and short rains from November to December whichalso defines the two cropping seasons of the area The maineconomic activities are agriculture (90) and small busi-nesses (7) and 3 are employed workers in different sectors[14] The local communities mainly cultivate crops includingcoffee (Coffea arabica) banana (Musa sp) maize (Zea mays)and common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) Human populationin Rombo District is about 260963 people having increasedby 30 between 1988 and 2012 [14] About 32 of the landis used for cultivation approximately 10 is for pasture and58 is protected forest [14] Up to five decades ago elephantsand other large mammals migrated between TWNP andKINAPA through Rombo and occurred at high numbers inRombo particularly in the southern part of Kilimanjaro andin the lowland areas bordering TWNP [17]The population ofelephants had been decreasing in this area and was estimatedto be 450 in 2010 [18] in the KINAPA ecosystem while anestimate of 2142 elephants was recently recorded in TWNP[13]

22 Study Design and Data Collection In assessing thespatiotemporal interactions between elephant and human areconnaissance survey was conducted in Rombo area Thesurvey encompassed interviews participant observationsand use of archive data to get an overview of this interactionfor area The reconnaissance results were able to give usthe long-term historical information on the elephant-humaninteractions in the area and further guided to focus on theareas (where these interactions are apparently challenging) astarget for main field data collection (Figure 1)

We collected primary data through semistructured inter-views in three divisions following the nature and extent ofoccurrence of HEC as per Rombo District Wildlife Officerecords spanning six years (2006ndash2011) Respondents com-prising at least 5 of the total number of households pervillage were randomly selected from the studied divisions(Mengwe Mashati and Tarakea) irrespective of whetherthere are HEC victims or not summing up to 261 householdsinterviewed in Rombo area Households selected randomlywere located at least 05 km to 1 km apart and their locationwas recorded using a handheld GPS (Garmin eTrex) Asemistructured questionnaire was administered to respon-dents aged 25 years and above who had lived in the respectivelocation for at least five years or more The information to be

Advances in Ecology 3

N

National ParksKilimanjaro forest plantationFarm dominated areasHuman settlement dominated areas

Major roadsStudy area boundaryInterviews locations

0 5 10 20 30 40

(km)

Figure 1 Map of Rombo District showing the core study areain northeastern Tanzania surrounded by the two protected areaKilimanjaroNational Park (KINAPA) and TsavoWest National Park(TWNP)

captured included presence of wildlife species on the differentland use types (farms settlement roads grazing areas andwatering points) frequency daytime season of elephant vis-its and the costs of crops lost Field visits were combinedwithquestionnaire data found across the entire study area and thedetailed quantification of the losses was calculated across thethree study divisions (Mengwe Mashati and Tarakea) Thisinformation was further validated with the data from the vil-lagemeetings and theDistrict Records Current andhistorical(2009ndash2015) levels of HEC in the area were obtained throughinterviews and through secondary data from Rombo DistrictWildlife Office (2006ndash2011) Additionally village meetingswere conducted and at least 20 people per village wereselected by their village leaders to be involved in meetingsThese included village leaders elders and influential peoplewithin the villages Some expert interviews with the DistrictWildlife Officer and District Agriculture Officer were alsoconducted Secondary data on problem wild animals overthe past six years (between 2006 and 2011) were collectedfrom the Rombo District Natural Resource OfficeThese dataincluded 387 recorded incidents with information on the (1)place where the incidence occurred (2) wild animal speciesresponsible (3) number of wild animals killed injured andchased away (4) crop types affected destroyed acres andestimated cost (5) livestock type number injured numberkilled and estimated costs and (6) people injured or killed

23 Data Analysis HEC hotspots (Getis-Ord Gilowast) analysistool was used to generate HEC hotspot map The HEC inci-dences from records and household surveys data were rankedbased on their extent (frequency and magnitudeseverity)and this ranged from the magnitude of zero (coldestno

conflict) to six (hottestmost conflict hotspot) Then the GPScoordinates for each of the HEC extents were taken and wereused as input features and overlaid on the digital map ofRombo area We considered an area to be an HEC hotspotwhen the frequency of incidents was reported to occur for atleast three out of six yearsThe spatial analysis was performedusingGeographical Information System (ArcGIS 104) whereGPS coordinates were imported into Arc map and these weregeoreferenced to the World Geographical System (WGS)1984 coordinate system and projected toUniversal TransverseMercator (UTM) Zone 37S prior to analysis To convert pointdata to raster data inverse distance weighted (IDW) inter-polation tool was used The in-depth information obtainedbased on peoplersquos perceptions and attitudes was analyzedqualitatively Multiple response analysis and cross tabulationwere performed using Statistical Package for Social Science(SPSS 21) Chi-square heterogeneity test was conducted onthe frequency of reported HEC in all study divisions for allyears and the types of conflicts that were reported in Romboover the consistent past six years The costs for crop losseswere measured by the average market price of the cropslost within a particular land area over the last two croppingseasons The average annual currency exchange rate (1 USD= 2100 Tsh) was used to convert Tanzanian shillings to USD

3 Results

31 Wild Animals Interacting with Locals The total numbersof 261 households were surveyed and various wild animalswere mentioned to interact with the local people in thestudy area Elephants were observed to be frequent visitorsin human dominated areas and were perceived by most ofthe local people (870) to be most dangerous followed byvervetmonkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus)with 56 (Table 1)a result that was confirmed by 95 of participants in focusgroup discussions that mentioned elephants to be moredangerous (to people livestock and crops on the farm) thanother wild animals in the area Respondents further narratedthat in this area other wild animals like baboon andmonkeysare not commonly endangering human lives or livestockand even the destruction of crops is minor compared tothat by elephants This also agrees with the District Recordswhereby the dominant incidents were reported to be causedby elephants (96) buffaloes (Syncerus caffer) (35) andolive baboon (Papio cynocephalus) (05)

32 HEC Incidents Recorded in the Study Area Out of 261respondents 80 claimed to have been victims of HECwhile20 declared to never have been affected by elephants Intotal 387 incidents of HEC throughout Rombowere reportedto the Wildlife Division office over the last six years withmost incidents occurring in Mengwe and Mashati The HECfrequency differed significantly across all divisions over sixyears (1198832 = 18516 119889119891 = 4 and 119875 lt 00001) Mengwe (38)was most often visited by elephants followed by Mashati(33) and Tarakea (18) while Useri (9) and Mkuu (2)were the least frequently visited

4 Advances in Ecology

Table 1 Frequency of visit and perceived threats by local people on the wild animals in Rombo area

Animal Scientific name Number of respondents Frequency of visit () Perception of danger ()Elephant Loxodonta africana 208 617 870Vervet monkey Chlorocebus pygerythrus 39 116 56Olive baboon Papio cynocephalus 37 110 43Buffalo Syncerus caffer 22 65 13Warthog Phacochoerus africanus 6 18 13Guinea fowl Numida meleagris 2 06 04Wildebeest Connochaetes gnou 1 03 00Zebra Equus quagga 20 59 00Dove Streptopelia roseogrisea 2 06 00Total 337 1000 1000

Table 2 Records and responses of human-elephant conflict (HEC) incidents (in number and percentages) in Rombo over the last six years

Damage HEC incident (recorded) Subtotal () HEC incident (respondents) Subtotal ()

Human Deaths 2 3 (05) 2 4 (04)Injuries 1 2

Crop raiding

Cowpea 43

682 (99)

71

1195 (99)

Finger millet 75 181Maize 171 221

Pigeon pea 96 180Irish potatoes 14 27

Banana 87 178Sunflower 91 49Cassava 56 70

Sweet potatoes 0 7Ground nuts 10 76Watermelon 0 5

Papaya 20 85Tomato 0 3Oranges 0 4Mango 19 38

Livestock Killed 1 2 (04) 2 4 (04)Injured 1 2

Water tap Destroyed 1 1 (01) 2 2 (02)Total 688 1205

Note Recorded incidents exceeded 387 due to multiple destruction per incident

33 Types of HEC Incidents Recorded in the Study Area Thetypes of conflicts differed significantly within Rombo over thepast years (1198832 = 79708 119889119891 = 4 and 119875 lt 00001) based onthe records with crop raiding being by far the major type ofconflict in records and during interviews (Table 2) Humanand livestock death or injury occurred very rarely (Table 2)Across the three study divisions two people had been killedone from Mengwe (a woman along the road near her home)and another fromMashati (a man who was drunk) Based onthe recordedHEC cases interviews andmeetingsmaize (Zeamays) was themost dominant crop raiding target followed bypigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) finger millet (Eleusine coracana)and banana (Musa sp) (Table 2)

34 Season and Costs of HEC Incidents in the Study AreaFrom the records conflicts occurred most frequently (in80 of the cases) between May and July while least conflicts(2) occurred in January and September whichwas similarlyreported by interviewees and meetings (Figure 2) From therespondents themean area damagedwas 4 ha per householdwith the destroyed farm sizes ranging from 15 ha to 15 haper household per season The mean total costs incurred perhousehold per season across three study divisions (MengweMashati andTarakea) were 398USD 256USD and 284USDrespectively and theymainly occurred betweenMay and JulyOver the past 6 years of our study monthly costs due to croploss as reported to the wildlife authorities ranged from 250

Advances in Ecology 5

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Cos

ts (U

SD)

HEC

inci

dent

s

Month

RecordsResponses from interviewCost for crops lost

Janu

ary

Febr

uary

Mar

ch

April

May

June July

Augu

st

Sept

embe

r

Oct

ober

Nov

embe

r

Dec

embe

r

Figure 2 Frequency of human-elephant conflict (HEC) and costsof crop loss across months based on the Rombo District Records(records 119899 = 387) and responses from interviews (119899 = 261) in theRombo area over the last 6 years

USD to 5000 USD per household per season (equivalent to50USD to 1000USDper household permonth) and occurredbetween April and June (Figure 2) The District Records andinformation from wildlife officers indicated that historicallythe elephants migrated from the nearby PAs (mainly TWNP)to KINAPA through Rombo area in groups of mixed ageand sex and ranging from 7 to 500 elephants Dependingon their numbers they damaged crops in the farmersrsquo fieldin Rombo as they move between the two PAs During suchevents local wildlife authorities have been cooperating withlocal people to move them away from the farms sometimesscaring them with the rubber bulletsThis approach has beenused in tense situations especially during cropping seasons asconflict management option although it is not considered bythe local people as a viable option in longer term in the areaThe majority of respondents (99) explained further thatthey did not receive any compensation for their losses Henceto avoid crop raiding they even harvest their maize beforetime (half dried) in June to avoid massive losses in July Dueto this reason although many elephants incidents reportedby respondents occurred in July the crop loss costs werenegligible From the interviews and meetings most (95)of elephant crop raiding took place during the nights andprolonged till early mornings when elephants were reportedto return to the protected areas

35 Local PreventionMitigation Measures and ConflictTrends Frequently usedmethods to deter elephants includedaudio instruments (56) such as shouting banging on

25

20

15

10

5

0

Perc

enta

ge (

) of r

espo

nden

ts

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Years

Figure 3 Responses of the interviewees on the human-elephantconflict (HEC) incidences over the past six (2010 to 2015) yearsacross the Rombo area

corrugated iron sheets tins and drums whistles Other HECmitigation measures as reported by respondents includedthe use of night visual instruments (24 eg lightingfires and torch lights) intervention by game rangers (19)and guarding fields (1) by the farmers themselvesRespondents claimed that elephants were becoming familiarto the methods rendering these to be less effective overtime Further they claimed that the techniques were labour-intensive and even included children in the activities Thereported incidents in the District Records indicated adecrease in HEC as 272 cases were reported in 2007 whileonly 66 cases were recorded in 2011 These records are inagreementwith the responses from local peoplewho reportedthat the overall HEC frequency has declined in Rombo(Figure 3)

36 HEC Hotspots across the Study Area The results showthat elephants were highly attracted by crops and henceHEC was most common in farm lands compared to otherland use areas The spatial analysis showed that the HEChotspots in Mengwe and Mashati divisions concentrated atlowland areas which were dominated by seasonal cropsespecially maize interspersed with only few settlementsFrom our interview meetings and District Records theselowland areas dominated by farms (particularly in Mengweand Mashati) were reported to have many conflict incidentsand were closer (about 30 to 10 km) to TWNP in KenyaIn these two divisions elephants were reported to comefrom TWNP and not KINAPATherefore the highland areascloser to KINAPA dominated by settlement and agroforestry(trees banana and coffee) representedHEC cold spots in ourmap In Tarakea division the elephants came from KINAPAand not TWNP Local people in this area cultivated theirseasonal crops in the forest plantations bordering KINAPA(Figure 1) Hence HEC hotspots concentrated inside the for-est plantations (Kamwanga EndonetNalemuru andRongai)bordering KINAPA where seasonal crops (mainly maize and

6 Advances in Ecology

N

0 5 10 20 30 40

(km)

HEC hotspots0 (very cold)1 (cold)2 (slightly cold)3 (slightly hot)4 (hot)5-6 (very hot)Lake Chala

Tsavo West National ParkKilimanjaro National ParkDivision boundaryUnstudied divisionsRombo DistrictKilimanjaro RegionTanzania

Figure 4 Human-elephant conflict (HEC) spots (ranging fromthe magnitude of zero [very cold] to six [very hotspot] areas) inRombo area The darker areas indicate hotspots (Only the threemost frequently visited areas by elephants (Mengwe Mashati andTarakea) were analyzed)

Irish potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)) were cultivated Areasoutside the forest dominated by settlement and agroforestryrepresented HEC cold spots (Figure 4)

4 Discussion

41 Human Perception Human-Elephant Conflict Incidentsand Costs While elephants were perceived as the most dan-gerous animals in our study area we also found various otherwild animal species to interact with local people Becauseof the level of destruction the elephants inflict rangingfrom severe crop raiding to killing people this species wasclaimed to bemost damaging and dangerous [19 20] In someareas farmers who also grow crops find that elephants andother wildlife can destroy entire swaths of their fields in asingle night [21] Under such circumstances some people inRombo abandoned their crops entirely which is supportedby a study in Longido in northern Tanzania where farmersrecently gave up growing crops because elephant damage wasso pervasive [22] In our study further negative attitudestowards elephants by local people have been attributed to theperception that elephants tend to make top soil less fertilethrough trampling Nutrient-rich top soils tend to be eroded

and to leach nutrients during heavy rains when herbaceouscover is being removed [23] However this perception is incontrast to [24 25] that indicated that elephant dung canincrease soil nutrients

Across the three study divisions crop raiding was themost frequently recorded and mentioned HEC This agreeswith a study in Zimbabwe where crops such as maize andsorghum were found to attract elephants [15] while in Ghanacocoa was most attractive [26] in India coffee seemed toattract elephants [27] and in Asia paddy [28] In our studyarea 82 of respondents mentioned maize to be highly pre-ferred by elephants compared to other crops congruent withfindings by [15 29] in Zimbabwe and Tanzania (Serengeti)respectively In our study area the cases for human mortalityby elephants were few similar to [20 30 31] contrary to astudy in Asia where human mortality through elephants washigh up to 50 people killed per year [28] HEC frequencyin the study area was strongly seasonal and occurred duringcropmaturity betweenMay and JulyThis is similar to studiesin Kenya where crop damage through raiding elephants washighest in August when crops had just matured [32] Wefound the costs of crop loss were about 300 USD per haand the costs per household were about 50 USD to 1000USD per month This is relatively high loss compared toother studies like in Cameroon which showed the cost ofelephant raiding was 195 USD per ha [33] and in Asia 200USD per year Elephant crop raiding (95) in this study tookplace during the nights and early mornings involving bothmale and female elephants similar to our study which is incontrast to findings by [28] that found that mainly solitarybulls attacked crops in Sri Lanka

42 Human-Elephant Conflicts Hotspot Areas In our studyin the lowland areas of Mengwe and Mashati elephants werereported to come from TWNP in Kenya to drink waterin Lake Chala especially during the dry season and theninvaded the nearby crop fields In Tarakea the elephants thatcaused conflictswerementioned to be coming fromKINAPAwhich is the nearest protected area from the farmland Thestudies conducted by [19 26] also concluded that it might beexpected that the proximity of a village or field to a protectedarea increases the likelihood of being affected by elephantsand other wild animals Our findings indicated that HEChotspots were found to be highest in Mengwe and Mashatidivisions (about 10 km from TWNP) with human populationdensities of 272 and 318 per km2 respectivelyThese densitiesare almost six times the national population density of 573people per km2 [14] The growth of the human populationaround PAs may have negative impacts on large mammalsand biodiversity through illegal hunting deforestation andhabitat encroachment [34 35] which ends up with blockageof migratory routes

We also found that in Rombomost HEC hotspots were infarmlands adjacent to protected areas which is in agreementwith [15 19 22 29 36] that found high HEC adjacentto protected areas and within migratory routes As muchas humansrsquo activities like agriculture affect large mammal(eg elephant) abundance and distribution through habitatloss and poachingoverhunting people and livestock also

Advances in Ecology 7

compete with wildlife for resources such as plant-derivedforage water and minerals resulting in various conflictsDuring the data collection in the field our participatoryobservations indicated that land use is rapidly changing inRombo [16] and wildlife habitats are declining fast The lowto medium elevation areas of Rombo received moderateannual rainfall (500mm) and thus the prospect of growingsome crops as well as more settlements being developed isimminentHECcold spotswere far away fromprotected areasand in highlands dominated by settlements and agroforestrywith planted trees and perennial crops like banana andcoffee While some studies in India show that elephants likecoffee [27] and around Serengeti Tanzania like banana [29]responses in our study showed that elephants do not oftenraid coffee or banana but rather prefer maize (Table 2)

43 Human-Elephant Conflict Trends In our study the HEChad decreased over the last six years This is in contrast toother studies [8] reported an increase inHEC ten years ago inZimbabwe Also [27] recorded an increase of HEC intensityover the last 10 years in India all of which were accompaniedwith a human population increase and the expansion offarms Contrary to this although the human population hasbeen growing and farms and settlements have expanded inthe Rombo area [14 16 37] HEC is declining This mightbe caused by the continued land use land cover changescoupled with an increase in human population in the nearbyprotected areas surrounding the farmland of the Rombo areawhichmight suppress elephants coming out of their protectedareas by blocking their migratory routes Decreasing HECincidents might also be caused by a decreasing elephantpopulation in the KINAPA ecosystem Up to five decadesago elephants and other large mammals migrated betweenTWNP and KINAPA through Rombo and occurred in highnumbers in Rombo particularly in the southern part ofKilimanjaro and in the lowland areas bordering TWNP [17]Due to increasing habitat fragmentation encroachment andpoaching for ivory trade some studies reported a decliningelephant population in the KINAPA ecosystem For instancein the 1970s the population was about 1200 elephants [10]and decreased to about 750 in 2003 [38] and further to 450in 2010 [18] while an estimate of 2142 elephants was recentlyrecorded in TWNP [13] Due to the blockage of themigratoryroutes in recent decades elephants are coming from TWNPand raid crops in lowland areas of Rombo and go back toTWNP In upland areas elephants come out from KINAPAraid the crops planted inside the forest plantation and go backto KINAPA [16 37]

44 Human Population and Its Implication to ElephantConservation The historical distribution of elephants andlarge mammals in Rombo area has been linked to humansettlements which largely occurred between 1930 and 1965and reduced the elephant distribution range to fewmigratoryelephant groups that would enter KINAPA from TWNP inthe east [10 17] This means that migration by elephants andother mammals used to occur on a regular basis betweenKINAPA and TWNP in Kenya to the east but very littleevidence was found that this migration still existed in this

studyThe number of people in RomboDistrict has increasedby 30 over the past 25 years [14 37] and this is likely to haveincreased competitionwith wildlife Generally savannas withhigh human populations also have high livestock numbersfarming activities and settlement [22] More people can alsomean more hunting pressure and thus more wildlife deaths[22 34] However from an anthropocentric point of viewconflicts with wildlife decrease as human populations riseand shift to smaller less dangerous species simply becausethe larger species disappear [22 37] This might be true forRombo area where there has been a decline in elephantpopulation in KINAPA by approximately 43 between 2003and 2010 [6 38] In this area humans have been competingwith elephants by converting their habitat into farmlandwhere they grow perennial and seasonal crops such asbananas coffee and maize [16] Therefore to attain elephantconservation and livelihood development it is necessary toconsider human population growth and distributions as thekey factor and come up with alternative land use plans

5 Conclusion

Given that no ecological study has ever been conducted inRombo area this is a new ground evidence generated fromthe data It also becomes the new beginning of science-based evidence to policy makers on how they can balancethe trade-offs between elephant conservation and humandevelopment Our assessment of the nature and the extentof HEC and its impact on conservation efforts providesimportant information to conservationists that are to meetthe challenges related to biodiversity loss We showed thatHEC hotspots are located in areas adjacent to PAs andcoincided with seasonal crop maturity especially maize inthe lowlands Short-term management measures such as theintroduction of alternative crops which are not attractiveto elephants to reduce HEC should be prioritized in areasbordering the PAs Damage prevention should focus on theseasonal crop like maize maturity and harvesting monthsOur study also showed that HEC incidents were decliningover the last six years despite increasing human settlementsand agricultural activity Althoughwedonot knowhowmanypeople this area can support without strongly diminishingwildlife populations patterns of human populations shouldbe taken into account when planning for long-termHECmit-igationmeasures Buffer zonesmay also be established in suchareas where human and wildlife coexistence is likely to occurLocal peoplemay benefit from coexistence if themechanismsfor sharing the profits from wildlife tourism for example arein place Our study shows how various locally collected datain combination with socioecological assessments interviewsand long-term records can successfully be applied to helphighlighting HEC hotspots and predicting their spatial andtemporal occurrence

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this paper

8 Advances in Ecology

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr A L Massawe the Wildlife Officerof Rombo District for providing secondary data on elephantconflict incidences in Rombo District as well as the VillageExecutive Officers E J Mtei Mr G J Kauki C Gwandu andM Mwanyange for their support in the field They furtherthank S Terengia for support in spatial analysis and H AMsuya M Iddy and N E Msuya for assisting during datacollection This work was supported by the Government ofTanzania through the Commission for Science and Tech-nology (COSTECH) and the German Academic ExchangeService (DAAD) as part of a PhD scholarship

References

[1] S M Redpath J Young A Evely W M Adams W J Suther-land A Whitehouse et al ldquoUnderstanding and managing con-servation conflictsrdquo Trends in Ecology amp Evolution vol 28 pp100ndash109 2013

[2] R E Hoare and J T Du Toit ldquoCoexistence between people andelephants inAfrican savannasrdquoConservation Biology vol 13 no3 pp 633ndash639 1999

[3] N W Sitati M J Walpole R J Smith and N Leader-WilliamsldquoPredicting spatial aspects of human-elephant conflictrdquo Journalof Applied Ecology vol 40 no 4 pp 667ndash677 2003

[4] M Mutinda G Chenge F Gakuya et al ldquoDetusking fence-breaker elephants as an approach in human-elephant conflictmitigationrdquo PLoS ONE vol 9 no 3 Article ID e91749 2014

[5] M Y Said J O Ogutu S C Kifugo O Makui R S Reid andJ de Leeuw ldquoEffects of extreme land fragmentation on wildlifeand livestock population abundance and distributionrdquo Journalfor Nature Conservation Elsevier GmbH vol 34 pp 151ndash1642016

[6] S Mduma A Lobora C Foley and J Trevor ldquoTanzania ele-phant management planrdquo Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute2010

[7] WCS ldquoHumanElephant ConflictMitigation inTanzaniardquoWildlConserv Soc Tanzania Program 2009

[8] R E Hoare ldquoVertically integrated Human-Elephant conflictmanagement system in Tanzania background and next stepsrdquoHuman-Elephant Confl Rev Case Stud pp 1ndash12 2007

[9] R R Hoffmeier-Karimi and B A Schulte ldquoAssessing perceivedand documented crop damage in a Tanzanian village impactedby human-elephant conflict (HEC)rdquo Pachyderm vol 2015 pp51ndash60 2015

[10] T A Afolayan ldquoEffects of elephant activities on forest plan-tations in the kilimanjaro forest-game reserve in northernTanzaniardquo Oikos vol 26 pp 405ndash410 1975

[11] S Wasser J Poole P Lee et al ldquoElephants Ivory and TraderdquoScience (80-) vol 327 pp 1331-1332 2010

[12] Y Chen J Marino Y Chen Q Tao C D Sullivan K Shi et alldquoPredicting hotspots of human-elephant conflict to informmit-igation strategies in xishuangbanna southwest Chinardquo PLOSONE vol 11 Article ID e0162035 2016

[13] S Ngene S Njumbi M Nzisa K Kimitei J Mukeka S Muyaet al ldquoStatus and trends of the elephant population in theTsavomdashMkomazi ecosystemrdquo Pachyderm vol 53 pp 38ndash502013

[14] URT ldquoPopulation and housing census population distributionby administrative areasrdquo 2013

[15] R E Hoare ldquoDeterminants of human-elephant conflict in aland-use mosaicrdquo Journal of Applied Ecology vol 36 no 5 pp689ndash700 1999

[16] N E Mmbaga L K Munishi and A C Treydte ldquoow dynamicsand drivers of land useland cover change impact elephant con-servation and agricultural livelihood development in RomboTanzaniardquo J Land Use Sci Taylor amp Francis vol 12 pp 168ndash1812017

[17] GChild ldquoSomenotes onmammals ofKilimanjarordquoTanganyikaNotes and Records vol 64 pp 77ndash89 1965

[18] D G Mpanduji and K Ngomello ldquoElephant movements andhome range determinations using GPSARGOS satellites andGIS programme Implication to conservation in southernTanzaniardquo in Proceedings of the 6th TAWIRI Annual ScientificConference pp 1ndash15 2007 httpwwwselous-niassa-corridororgfileadminpublicationsSNWC elephant movementsand home range determinationspdf

[19] M D Graham I Douglas-Hamilton W M Adams and P CLee ldquoThe movement of African elephants in a human-domi-nated land-use mosaicrdquo Animal Conservation vol 12 no 5 pp445ndash455 2009

[20] A Changrsquoa N de Souza J Muya et al ldquoScaling-up the use ofchili fences for reducing human-elephant conflict across land-scapes in Tanzaniardquo Tropical Conservation Science vol 9 no 2pp 921ndash930 2016

[21] S Gubbi ldquoPatterns and correlates of human-elephant conflictaround a south Indian reserverdquoBiological Conservation vol 148no 1 pp 88ndash95 2012

[22] R S Reid Savannans of our birth People wildlife and change inEast Africa University of Califonia Press London UK 2012

[23] R Liu J Wang J Shi et al ldquoRunoff characteristics and nutrientloss mechanism from plain farmland under simulated rainfallconditionsrdquo Science of the Total Environment vol 468-469 pp1069ndash1077 2014

[24] J Metsio Sienne R Buchwald and G Wittemyer ldquoDiffer-entiation in mineral constituents in elephant selected versusunselected water and soil resources at Central African bais(forest clearings)rdquoEuropean Journal ofWildlife Research vol 60no 2 pp 377ndash382 2014

[25] G E Soka and M E Ritchie ldquoLand-Cover legacy effectson arbuscular mycorrhizal abundance in human and wildlifedominated systems in tropical savannardquo Advances in Ecologyvol 2016 10 pages 2016

[26] F KHarich A C Treydte J Sauerborn andEHOwusu ldquoPeo-ple and wildlife Conflicts arising around the Bia ConservationArea in Ghanardquo Journal for Nature Conservation vol 21 no 5pp 342ndash349 2013

[27] P Bal C D Nath K M Nanaya C G Kushalappa andC Garcia ldquoElephants also like coffee Trends and drivers ofhuman-elephant conflicts in coffee agroforestry landscapes ofKodagu Western Ghats Indiardquo Environmental Managementvol 47 no 5 pp 789ndash801 2011

[28] C Santiapillai S Wijeyamohan G Bandara R AthurupanaN Dissanayake and B Read ldquoAn assessment of the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lankardquo Ceylon Journal of Science(Biological Sciences) vol 39 pp 21ndash33 2010

[29] A Mwakatobe J Nyahongo J Ntalwila and E Roskaft ldquoTheimpact of crop raiding by wild animals in communities sur-rounding the Serengeti National Parkrdquo Int J Biodivers Conservvol 6 pp 637ndash646 2014

[30] R Hoare ldquoAfrican elephants and humans in conflict theoutlook for co-existencerdquo Oryx vol 34 pp 34ndash38 2000

Advances in Ecology 3

N

National ParksKilimanjaro forest plantationFarm dominated areasHuman settlement dominated areas

Major roadsStudy area boundaryInterviews locations

0 5 10 20 30 40

(km)

Figure 1 Map of Rombo District showing the core study areain northeastern Tanzania surrounded by the two protected areaKilimanjaroNational Park (KINAPA) and TsavoWest National Park(TWNP)

captured included presence of wildlife species on the differentland use types (farms settlement roads grazing areas andwatering points) frequency daytime season of elephant vis-its and the costs of crops lost Field visits were combinedwithquestionnaire data found across the entire study area and thedetailed quantification of the losses was calculated across thethree study divisions (Mengwe Mashati and Tarakea) Thisinformation was further validated with the data from the vil-lagemeetings and theDistrict Records Current andhistorical(2009ndash2015) levels of HEC in the area were obtained throughinterviews and through secondary data from Rombo DistrictWildlife Office (2006ndash2011) Additionally village meetingswere conducted and at least 20 people per village wereselected by their village leaders to be involved in meetingsThese included village leaders elders and influential peoplewithin the villages Some expert interviews with the DistrictWildlife Officer and District Agriculture Officer were alsoconducted Secondary data on problem wild animals overthe past six years (between 2006 and 2011) were collectedfrom the Rombo District Natural Resource OfficeThese dataincluded 387 recorded incidents with information on the (1)place where the incidence occurred (2) wild animal speciesresponsible (3) number of wild animals killed injured andchased away (4) crop types affected destroyed acres andestimated cost (5) livestock type number injured numberkilled and estimated costs and (6) people injured or killed

23 Data Analysis HEC hotspots (Getis-Ord Gilowast) analysistool was used to generate HEC hotspot map The HEC inci-dences from records and household surveys data were rankedbased on their extent (frequency and magnitudeseverity)and this ranged from the magnitude of zero (coldestno

conflict) to six (hottestmost conflict hotspot) Then the GPScoordinates for each of the HEC extents were taken and wereused as input features and overlaid on the digital map ofRombo area We considered an area to be an HEC hotspotwhen the frequency of incidents was reported to occur for atleast three out of six yearsThe spatial analysis was performedusingGeographical Information System (ArcGIS 104) whereGPS coordinates were imported into Arc map and these weregeoreferenced to the World Geographical System (WGS)1984 coordinate system and projected toUniversal TransverseMercator (UTM) Zone 37S prior to analysis To convert pointdata to raster data inverse distance weighted (IDW) inter-polation tool was used The in-depth information obtainedbased on peoplersquos perceptions and attitudes was analyzedqualitatively Multiple response analysis and cross tabulationwere performed using Statistical Package for Social Science(SPSS 21) Chi-square heterogeneity test was conducted onthe frequency of reported HEC in all study divisions for allyears and the types of conflicts that were reported in Romboover the consistent past six years The costs for crop losseswere measured by the average market price of the cropslost within a particular land area over the last two croppingseasons The average annual currency exchange rate (1 USD= 2100 Tsh) was used to convert Tanzanian shillings to USD

3 Results

31 Wild Animals Interacting with Locals The total numbersof 261 households were surveyed and various wild animalswere mentioned to interact with the local people in thestudy area Elephants were observed to be frequent visitorsin human dominated areas and were perceived by most ofthe local people (870) to be most dangerous followed byvervetmonkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus)with 56 (Table 1)a result that was confirmed by 95 of participants in focusgroup discussions that mentioned elephants to be moredangerous (to people livestock and crops on the farm) thanother wild animals in the area Respondents further narratedthat in this area other wild animals like baboon andmonkeysare not commonly endangering human lives or livestockand even the destruction of crops is minor compared tothat by elephants This also agrees with the District Recordswhereby the dominant incidents were reported to be causedby elephants (96) buffaloes (Syncerus caffer) (35) andolive baboon (Papio cynocephalus) (05)

32 HEC Incidents Recorded in the Study Area Out of 261respondents 80 claimed to have been victims of HECwhile20 declared to never have been affected by elephants Intotal 387 incidents of HEC throughout Rombowere reportedto the Wildlife Division office over the last six years withmost incidents occurring in Mengwe and Mashati The HECfrequency differed significantly across all divisions over sixyears (1198832 = 18516 119889119891 = 4 and 119875 lt 00001) Mengwe (38)was most often visited by elephants followed by Mashati(33) and Tarakea (18) while Useri (9) and Mkuu (2)were the least frequently visited

4 Advances in Ecology

Table 1 Frequency of visit and perceived threats by local people on the wild animals in Rombo area

Animal Scientific name Number of respondents Frequency of visit () Perception of danger ()Elephant Loxodonta africana 208 617 870Vervet monkey Chlorocebus pygerythrus 39 116 56Olive baboon Papio cynocephalus 37 110 43Buffalo Syncerus caffer 22 65 13Warthog Phacochoerus africanus 6 18 13Guinea fowl Numida meleagris 2 06 04Wildebeest Connochaetes gnou 1 03 00Zebra Equus quagga 20 59 00Dove Streptopelia roseogrisea 2 06 00Total 337 1000 1000

Table 2 Records and responses of human-elephant conflict (HEC) incidents (in number and percentages) in Rombo over the last six years

Damage HEC incident (recorded) Subtotal () HEC incident (respondents) Subtotal ()

Human Deaths 2 3 (05) 2 4 (04)Injuries 1 2

Crop raiding

Cowpea 43

682 (99)

71

1195 (99)

Finger millet 75 181Maize 171 221

Pigeon pea 96 180Irish potatoes 14 27

Banana 87 178Sunflower 91 49Cassava 56 70

Sweet potatoes 0 7Ground nuts 10 76Watermelon 0 5

Papaya 20 85Tomato 0 3Oranges 0 4Mango 19 38

Livestock Killed 1 2 (04) 2 4 (04)Injured 1 2

Water tap Destroyed 1 1 (01) 2 2 (02)Total 688 1205

Note Recorded incidents exceeded 387 due to multiple destruction per incident

33 Types of HEC Incidents Recorded in the Study Area Thetypes of conflicts differed significantly within Rombo over thepast years (1198832 = 79708 119889119891 = 4 and 119875 lt 00001) based onthe records with crop raiding being by far the major type ofconflict in records and during interviews (Table 2) Humanand livestock death or injury occurred very rarely (Table 2)Across the three study divisions two people had been killedone from Mengwe (a woman along the road near her home)and another fromMashati (a man who was drunk) Based onthe recordedHEC cases interviews andmeetingsmaize (Zeamays) was themost dominant crop raiding target followed bypigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) finger millet (Eleusine coracana)and banana (Musa sp) (Table 2)

34 Season and Costs of HEC Incidents in the Study AreaFrom the records conflicts occurred most frequently (in80 of the cases) between May and July while least conflicts(2) occurred in January and September whichwas similarlyreported by interviewees and meetings (Figure 2) From therespondents themean area damagedwas 4 ha per householdwith the destroyed farm sizes ranging from 15 ha to 15 haper household per season The mean total costs incurred perhousehold per season across three study divisions (MengweMashati andTarakea) were 398USD 256USD and 284USDrespectively and theymainly occurred betweenMay and JulyOver the past 6 years of our study monthly costs due to croploss as reported to the wildlife authorities ranged from 250

Advances in Ecology 5

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Cos

ts (U

SD)

HEC

inci

dent

s

Month

RecordsResponses from interviewCost for crops lost

Janu

ary

Febr

uary

Mar

ch

April

May

June July

Augu

st

Sept

embe

r

Oct

ober

Nov

embe

r

Dec

embe

r

Figure 2 Frequency of human-elephant conflict (HEC) and costsof crop loss across months based on the Rombo District Records(records 119899 = 387) and responses from interviews (119899 = 261) in theRombo area over the last 6 years

USD to 5000 USD per household per season (equivalent to50USD to 1000USDper household permonth) and occurredbetween April and June (Figure 2) The District Records andinformation from wildlife officers indicated that historicallythe elephants migrated from the nearby PAs (mainly TWNP)to KINAPA through Rombo area in groups of mixed ageand sex and ranging from 7 to 500 elephants Dependingon their numbers they damaged crops in the farmersrsquo fieldin Rombo as they move between the two PAs During suchevents local wildlife authorities have been cooperating withlocal people to move them away from the farms sometimesscaring them with the rubber bulletsThis approach has beenused in tense situations especially during cropping seasons asconflict management option although it is not considered bythe local people as a viable option in longer term in the areaThe majority of respondents (99) explained further thatthey did not receive any compensation for their losses Henceto avoid crop raiding they even harvest their maize beforetime (half dried) in June to avoid massive losses in July Dueto this reason although many elephants incidents reportedby respondents occurred in July the crop loss costs werenegligible From the interviews and meetings most (95)of elephant crop raiding took place during the nights andprolonged till early mornings when elephants were reportedto return to the protected areas

35 Local PreventionMitigation Measures and ConflictTrends Frequently usedmethods to deter elephants includedaudio instruments (56) such as shouting banging on

25

20

15

10

5

0

Perc

enta

ge (

) of r

espo

nden

ts

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Years

Figure 3 Responses of the interviewees on the human-elephantconflict (HEC) incidences over the past six (2010 to 2015) yearsacross the Rombo area

corrugated iron sheets tins and drums whistles Other HECmitigation measures as reported by respondents includedthe use of night visual instruments (24 eg lightingfires and torch lights) intervention by game rangers (19)and guarding fields (1) by the farmers themselvesRespondents claimed that elephants were becoming familiarto the methods rendering these to be less effective overtime Further they claimed that the techniques were labour-intensive and even included children in the activities Thereported incidents in the District Records indicated adecrease in HEC as 272 cases were reported in 2007 whileonly 66 cases were recorded in 2011 These records are inagreementwith the responses from local peoplewho reportedthat the overall HEC frequency has declined in Rombo(Figure 3)

36 HEC Hotspots across the Study Area The results showthat elephants were highly attracted by crops and henceHEC was most common in farm lands compared to otherland use areas The spatial analysis showed that the HEChotspots in Mengwe and Mashati divisions concentrated atlowland areas which were dominated by seasonal cropsespecially maize interspersed with only few settlementsFrom our interview meetings and District Records theselowland areas dominated by farms (particularly in Mengweand Mashati) were reported to have many conflict incidentsand were closer (about 30 to 10 km) to TWNP in KenyaIn these two divisions elephants were reported to comefrom TWNP and not KINAPATherefore the highland areascloser to KINAPA dominated by settlement and agroforestry(trees banana and coffee) representedHEC cold spots in ourmap In Tarakea division the elephants came from KINAPAand not TWNP Local people in this area cultivated theirseasonal crops in the forest plantations bordering KINAPA(Figure 1) Hence HEC hotspots concentrated inside the for-est plantations (Kamwanga EndonetNalemuru andRongai)bordering KINAPA where seasonal crops (mainly maize and

6 Advances in Ecology

N

0 5 10 20 30 40

(km)

HEC hotspots0 (very cold)1 (cold)2 (slightly cold)3 (slightly hot)4 (hot)5-6 (very hot)Lake Chala

Tsavo West National ParkKilimanjaro National ParkDivision boundaryUnstudied divisionsRombo DistrictKilimanjaro RegionTanzania

Figure 4 Human-elephant conflict (HEC) spots (ranging fromthe magnitude of zero [very cold] to six [very hotspot] areas) inRombo area The darker areas indicate hotspots (Only the threemost frequently visited areas by elephants (Mengwe Mashati andTarakea) were analyzed)

Irish potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)) were cultivated Areasoutside the forest dominated by settlement and agroforestryrepresented HEC cold spots (Figure 4)

4 Discussion

41 Human Perception Human-Elephant Conflict Incidentsand Costs While elephants were perceived as the most dan-gerous animals in our study area we also found various otherwild animal species to interact with local people Becauseof the level of destruction the elephants inflict rangingfrom severe crop raiding to killing people this species wasclaimed to bemost damaging and dangerous [19 20] In someareas farmers who also grow crops find that elephants andother wildlife can destroy entire swaths of their fields in asingle night [21] Under such circumstances some people inRombo abandoned their crops entirely which is supportedby a study in Longido in northern Tanzania where farmersrecently gave up growing crops because elephant damage wasso pervasive [22] In our study further negative attitudestowards elephants by local people have been attributed to theperception that elephants tend to make top soil less fertilethrough trampling Nutrient-rich top soils tend to be eroded

and to leach nutrients during heavy rains when herbaceouscover is being removed [23] However this perception is incontrast to [24 25] that indicated that elephant dung canincrease soil nutrients

Across the three study divisions crop raiding was themost frequently recorded and mentioned HEC This agreeswith a study in Zimbabwe where crops such as maize andsorghum were found to attract elephants [15] while in Ghanacocoa was most attractive [26] in India coffee seemed toattract elephants [27] and in Asia paddy [28] In our studyarea 82 of respondents mentioned maize to be highly pre-ferred by elephants compared to other crops congruent withfindings by [15 29] in Zimbabwe and Tanzania (Serengeti)respectively In our study area the cases for human mortalityby elephants were few similar to [20 30 31] contrary to astudy in Asia where human mortality through elephants washigh up to 50 people killed per year [28] HEC frequencyin the study area was strongly seasonal and occurred duringcropmaturity betweenMay and JulyThis is similar to studiesin Kenya where crop damage through raiding elephants washighest in August when crops had just matured [32] Wefound the costs of crop loss were about 300 USD per haand the costs per household were about 50 USD to 1000USD per month This is relatively high loss compared toother studies like in Cameroon which showed the cost ofelephant raiding was 195 USD per ha [33] and in Asia 200USD per year Elephant crop raiding (95) in this study tookplace during the nights and early mornings involving bothmale and female elephants similar to our study which is incontrast to findings by [28] that found that mainly solitarybulls attacked crops in Sri Lanka

42 Human-Elephant Conflicts Hotspot Areas In our studyin the lowland areas of Mengwe and Mashati elephants werereported to come from TWNP in Kenya to drink waterin Lake Chala especially during the dry season and theninvaded the nearby crop fields In Tarakea the elephants thatcaused conflictswerementioned to be coming fromKINAPAwhich is the nearest protected area from the farmland Thestudies conducted by [19 26] also concluded that it might beexpected that the proximity of a village or field to a protectedarea increases the likelihood of being affected by elephantsand other wild animals Our findings indicated that HEChotspots were found to be highest in Mengwe and Mashatidivisions (about 10 km from TWNP) with human populationdensities of 272 and 318 per km2 respectivelyThese densitiesare almost six times the national population density of 573people per km2 [14] The growth of the human populationaround PAs may have negative impacts on large mammalsand biodiversity through illegal hunting deforestation andhabitat encroachment [34 35] which ends up with blockageof migratory routes

We also found that in Rombomost HEC hotspots were infarmlands adjacent to protected areas which is in agreementwith [15 19 22 29 36] that found high HEC adjacentto protected areas and within migratory routes As muchas humansrsquo activities like agriculture affect large mammal(eg elephant) abundance and distribution through habitatloss and poachingoverhunting people and livestock also

Advances in Ecology 7

compete with wildlife for resources such as plant-derivedforage water and minerals resulting in various conflictsDuring the data collection in the field our participatoryobservations indicated that land use is rapidly changing inRombo [16] and wildlife habitats are declining fast The lowto medium elevation areas of Rombo received moderateannual rainfall (500mm) and thus the prospect of growingsome crops as well as more settlements being developed isimminentHECcold spotswere far away fromprotected areasand in highlands dominated by settlements and agroforestrywith planted trees and perennial crops like banana andcoffee While some studies in India show that elephants likecoffee [27] and around Serengeti Tanzania like banana [29]responses in our study showed that elephants do not oftenraid coffee or banana but rather prefer maize (Table 2)

43 Human-Elephant Conflict Trends In our study the HEChad decreased over the last six years This is in contrast toother studies [8] reported an increase inHEC ten years ago inZimbabwe Also [27] recorded an increase of HEC intensityover the last 10 years in India all of which were accompaniedwith a human population increase and the expansion offarms Contrary to this although the human population hasbeen growing and farms and settlements have expanded inthe Rombo area [14 16 37] HEC is declining This mightbe caused by the continued land use land cover changescoupled with an increase in human population in the nearbyprotected areas surrounding the farmland of the Rombo areawhichmight suppress elephants coming out of their protectedareas by blocking their migratory routes Decreasing HECincidents might also be caused by a decreasing elephantpopulation in the KINAPA ecosystem Up to five decadesago elephants and other large mammals migrated betweenTWNP and KINAPA through Rombo and occurred in highnumbers in Rombo particularly in the southern part ofKilimanjaro and in the lowland areas bordering TWNP [17]Due to increasing habitat fragmentation encroachment andpoaching for ivory trade some studies reported a decliningelephant population in the KINAPA ecosystem For instancein the 1970s the population was about 1200 elephants [10]and decreased to about 750 in 2003 [38] and further to 450in 2010 [18] while an estimate of 2142 elephants was recentlyrecorded in TWNP [13] Due to the blockage of themigratoryroutes in recent decades elephants are coming from TWNPand raid crops in lowland areas of Rombo and go back toTWNP In upland areas elephants come out from KINAPAraid the crops planted inside the forest plantation and go backto KINAPA [16 37]

44 Human Population and Its Implication to ElephantConservation The historical distribution of elephants andlarge mammals in Rombo area has been linked to humansettlements which largely occurred between 1930 and 1965and reduced the elephant distribution range to fewmigratoryelephant groups that would enter KINAPA from TWNP inthe east [10 17] This means that migration by elephants andother mammals used to occur on a regular basis betweenKINAPA and TWNP in Kenya to the east but very littleevidence was found that this migration still existed in this

studyThe number of people in RomboDistrict has increasedby 30 over the past 25 years [14 37] and this is likely to haveincreased competitionwith wildlife Generally savannas withhigh human populations also have high livestock numbersfarming activities and settlement [22] More people can alsomean more hunting pressure and thus more wildlife deaths[22 34] However from an anthropocentric point of viewconflicts with wildlife decrease as human populations riseand shift to smaller less dangerous species simply becausethe larger species disappear [22 37] This might be true forRombo area where there has been a decline in elephantpopulation in KINAPA by approximately 43 between 2003and 2010 [6 38] In this area humans have been competingwith elephants by converting their habitat into farmlandwhere they grow perennial and seasonal crops such asbananas coffee and maize [16] Therefore to attain elephantconservation and livelihood development it is necessary toconsider human population growth and distributions as thekey factor and come up with alternative land use plans

5 Conclusion

Given that no ecological study has ever been conducted inRombo area this is a new ground evidence generated fromthe data It also becomes the new beginning of science-based evidence to policy makers on how they can balancethe trade-offs between elephant conservation and humandevelopment Our assessment of the nature and the extentof HEC and its impact on conservation efforts providesimportant information to conservationists that are to meetthe challenges related to biodiversity loss We showed thatHEC hotspots are located in areas adjacent to PAs andcoincided with seasonal crop maturity especially maize inthe lowlands Short-term management measures such as theintroduction of alternative crops which are not attractiveto elephants to reduce HEC should be prioritized in areasbordering the PAs Damage prevention should focus on theseasonal crop like maize maturity and harvesting monthsOur study also showed that HEC incidents were decliningover the last six years despite increasing human settlementsand agricultural activity Althoughwedonot knowhowmanypeople this area can support without strongly diminishingwildlife populations patterns of human populations shouldbe taken into account when planning for long-termHECmit-igationmeasures Buffer zonesmay also be established in suchareas where human and wildlife coexistence is likely to occurLocal peoplemay benefit from coexistence if themechanismsfor sharing the profits from wildlife tourism for example arein place Our study shows how various locally collected datain combination with socioecological assessments interviewsand long-term records can successfully be applied to helphighlighting HEC hotspots and predicting their spatial andtemporal occurrence

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this paper

8 Advances in Ecology

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr A L Massawe the Wildlife Officerof Rombo District for providing secondary data on elephantconflict incidences in Rombo District as well as the VillageExecutive Officers E J Mtei Mr G J Kauki C Gwandu andM Mwanyange for their support in the field They furtherthank S Terengia for support in spatial analysis and H AMsuya M Iddy and N E Msuya for assisting during datacollection This work was supported by the Government ofTanzania through the Commission for Science and Tech-nology (COSTECH) and the German Academic ExchangeService (DAAD) as part of a PhD scholarship

References

[1] S M Redpath J Young A Evely W M Adams W J Suther-land A Whitehouse et al ldquoUnderstanding and managing con-servation conflictsrdquo Trends in Ecology amp Evolution vol 28 pp100ndash109 2013

[2] R E Hoare and J T Du Toit ldquoCoexistence between people andelephants inAfrican savannasrdquoConservation Biology vol 13 no3 pp 633ndash639 1999

[3] N W Sitati M J Walpole R J Smith and N Leader-WilliamsldquoPredicting spatial aspects of human-elephant conflictrdquo Journalof Applied Ecology vol 40 no 4 pp 667ndash677 2003

[4] M Mutinda G Chenge F Gakuya et al ldquoDetusking fence-breaker elephants as an approach in human-elephant conflictmitigationrdquo PLoS ONE vol 9 no 3 Article ID e91749 2014

[5] M Y Said J O Ogutu S C Kifugo O Makui R S Reid andJ de Leeuw ldquoEffects of extreme land fragmentation on wildlifeand livestock population abundance and distributionrdquo Journalfor Nature Conservation Elsevier GmbH vol 34 pp 151ndash1642016

[6] S Mduma A Lobora C Foley and J Trevor ldquoTanzania ele-phant management planrdquo Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute2010

[7] WCS ldquoHumanElephant ConflictMitigation inTanzaniardquoWildlConserv Soc Tanzania Program 2009

[8] R E Hoare ldquoVertically integrated Human-Elephant conflictmanagement system in Tanzania background and next stepsrdquoHuman-Elephant Confl Rev Case Stud pp 1ndash12 2007

[9] R R Hoffmeier-Karimi and B A Schulte ldquoAssessing perceivedand documented crop damage in a Tanzanian village impactedby human-elephant conflict (HEC)rdquo Pachyderm vol 2015 pp51ndash60 2015

[10] T A Afolayan ldquoEffects of elephant activities on forest plan-tations in the kilimanjaro forest-game reserve in northernTanzaniardquo Oikos vol 26 pp 405ndash410 1975

[11] S Wasser J Poole P Lee et al ldquoElephants Ivory and TraderdquoScience (80-) vol 327 pp 1331-1332 2010

[12] Y Chen J Marino Y Chen Q Tao C D Sullivan K Shi et alldquoPredicting hotspots of human-elephant conflict to informmit-igation strategies in xishuangbanna southwest Chinardquo PLOSONE vol 11 Article ID e0162035 2016

[13] S Ngene S Njumbi M Nzisa K Kimitei J Mukeka S Muyaet al ldquoStatus and trends of the elephant population in theTsavomdashMkomazi ecosystemrdquo Pachyderm vol 53 pp 38ndash502013

[14] URT ldquoPopulation and housing census population distributionby administrative areasrdquo 2013

[15] R E Hoare ldquoDeterminants of human-elephant conflict in aland-use mosaicrdquo Journal of Applied Ecology vol 36 no 5 pp689ndash700 1999

[16] N E Mmbaga L K Munishi and A C Treydte ldquoow dynamicsand drivers of land useland cover change impact elephant con-servation and agricultural livelihood development in RomboTanzaniardquo J Land Use Sci Taylor amp Francis vol 12 pp 168ndash1812017

[17] GChild ldquoSomenotes onmammals ofKilimanjarordquoTanganyikaNotes and Records vol 64 pp 77ndash89 1965

[18] D G Mpanduji and K Ngomello ldquoElephant movements andhome range determinations using GPSARGOS satellites andGIS programme Implication to conservation in southernTanzaniardquo in Proceedings of the 6th TAWIRI Annual ScientificConference pp 1ndash15 2007 httpwwwselous-niassa-corridororgfileadminpublicationsSNWC elephant movementsand home range determinationspdf

[19] M D Graham I Douglas-Hamilton W M Adams and P CLee ldquoThe movement of African elephants in a human-domi-nated land-use mosaicrdquo Animal Conservation vol 12 no 5 pp445ndash455 2009

[20] A Changrsquoa N de Souza J Muya et al ldquoScaling-up the use ofchili fences for reducing human-elephant conflict across land-scapes in Tanzaniardquo Tropical Conservation Science vol 9 no 2pp 921ndash930 2016

[21] S Gubbi ldquoPatterns and correlates of human-elephant conflictaround a south Indian reserverdquoBiological Conservation vol 148no 1 pp 88ndash95 2012

[22] R S Reid Savannans of our birth People wildlife and change inEast Africa University of Califonia Press London UK 2012

[23] R Liu J Wang J Shi et al ldquoRunoff characteristics and nutrientloss mechanism from plain farmland under simulated rainfallconditionsrdquo Science of the Total Environment vol 468-469 pp1069ndash1077 2014

[24] J Metsio Sienne R Buchwald and G Wittemyer ldquoDiffer-entiation in mineral constituents in elephant selected versusunselected water and soil resources at Central African bais(forest clearings)rdquoEuropean Journal ofWildlife Research vol 60no 2 pp 377ndash382 2014

[25] G E Soka and M E Ritchie ldquoLand-Cover legacy effectson arbuscular mycorrhizal abundance in human and wildlifedominated systems in tropical savannardquo Advances in Ecologyvol 2016 10 pages 2016

[26] F KHarich A C Treydte J Sauerborn andEHOwusu ldquoPeo-ple and wildlife Conflicts arising around the Bia ConservationArea in Ghanardquo Journal for Nature Conservation vol 21 no 5pp 342ndash349 2013

[27] P Bal C D Nath K M Nanaya C G Kushalappa andC Garcia ldquoElephants also like coffee Trends and drivers ofhuman-elephant conflicts in coffee agroforestry landscapes ofKodagu Western Ghats Indiardquo Environmental Managementvol 47 no 5 pp 789ndash801 2011

[28] C Santiapillai S Wijeyamohan G Bandara R AthurupanaN Dissanayake and B Read ldquoAn assessment of the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lankardquo Ceylon Journal of Science(Biological Sciences) vol 39 pp 21ndash33 2010

[29] A Mwakatobe J Nyahongo J Ntalwila and E Roskaft ldquoTheimpact of crop raiding by wild animals in communities sur-rounding the Serengeti National Parkrdquo Int J Biodivers Conservvol 6 pp 637ndash646 2014

[30] R Hoare ldquoAfrican elephants and humans in conflict theoutlook for co-existencerdquo Oryx vol 34 pp 34ndash38 2000

4 Advances in Ecology

Table 1 Frequency of visit and perceived threats by local people on the wild animals in Rombo area

Animal Scientific name Number of respondents Frequency of visit () Perception of danger ()Elephant Loxodonta africana 208 617 870Vervet monkey Chlorocebus pygerythrus 39 116 56Olive baboon Papio cynocephalus 37 110 43Buffalo Syncerus caffer 22 65 13Warthog Phacochoerus africanus 6 18 13Guinea fowl Numida meleagris 2 06 04Wildebeest Connochaetes gnou 1 03 00Zebra Equus quagga 20 59 00Dove Streptopelia roseogrisea 2 06 00Total 337 1000 1000

Table 2 Records and responses of human-elephant conflict (HEC) incidents (in number and percentages) in Rombo over the last six years

Damage HEC incident (recorded) Subtotal () HEC incident (respondents) Subtotal ()

Human Deaths 2 3 (05) 2 4 (04)Injuries 1 2

Crop raiding

Cowpea 43

682 (99)

71

1195 (99)

Finger millet 75 181Maize 171 221

Pigeon pea 96 180Irish potatoes 14 27

Banana 87 178Sunflower 91 49Cassava 56 70

Sweet potatoes 0 7Ground nuts 10 76Watermelon 0 5

Papaya 20 85Tomato 0 3Oranges 0 4Mango 19 38

Livestock Killed 1 2 (04) 2 4 (04)Injured 1 2

Water tap Destroyed 1 1 (01) 2 2 (02)Total 688 1205

Note Recorded incidents exceeded 387 due to multiple destruction per incident

33 Types of HEC Incidents Recorded in the Study Area Thetypes of conflicts differed significantly within Rombo over thepast years (1198832 = 79708 119889119891 = 4 and 119875 lt 00001) based onthe records with crop raiding being by far the major type ofconflict in records and during interviews (Table 2) Humanand livestock death or injury occurred very rarely (Table 2)Across the three study divisions two people had been killedone from Mengwe (a woman along the road near her home)and another fromMashati (a man who was drunk) Based onthe recordedHEC cases interviews andmeetingsmaize (Zeamays) was themost dominant crop raiding target followed bypigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) finger millet (Eleusine coracana)and banana (Musa sp) (Table 2)

34 Season and Costs of HEC Incidents in the Study AreaFrom the records conflicts occurred most frequently (in80 of the cases) between May and July while least conflicts(2) occurred in January and September whichwas similarlyreported by interviewees and meetings (Figure 2) From therespondents themean area damagedwas 4 ha per householdwith the destroyed farm sizes ranging from 15 ha to 15 haper household per season The mean total costs incurred perhousehold per season across three study divisions (MengweMashati andTarakea) were 398USD 256USD and 284USDrespectively and theymainly occurred betweenMay and JulyOver the past 6 years of our study monthly costs due to croploss as reported to the wildlife authorities ranged from 250

Advances in Ecology 5

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Cos

ts (U

SD)

HEC

inci

dent

s

Month

RecordsResponses from interviewCost for crops lost

Janu

ary

Febr

uary

Mar

ch

April

May

June July

Augu

st

Sept

embe

r

Oct

ober

Nov

embe

r

Dec

embe

r

Figure 2 Frequency of human-elephant conflict (HEC) and costsof crop loss across months based on the Rombo District Records(records 119899 = 387) and responses from interviews (119899 = 261) in theRombo area over the last 6 years

USD to 5000 USD per household per season (equivalent to50USD to 1000USDper household permonth) and occurredbetween April and June (Figure 2) The District Records andinformation from wildlife officers indicated that historicallythe elephants migrated from the nearby PAs (mainly TWNP)to KINAPA through Rombo area in groups of mixed ageand sex and ranging from 7 to 500 elephants Dependingon their numbers they damaged crops in the farmersrsquo fieldin Rombo as they move between the two PAs During suchevents local wildlife authorities have been cooperating withlocal people to move them away from the farms sometimesscaring them with the rubber bulletsThis approach has beenused in tense situations especially during cropping seasons asconflict management option although it is not considered bythe local people as a viable option in longer term in the areaThe majority of respondents (99) explained further thatthey did not receive any compensation for their losses Henceto avoid crop raiding they even harvest their maize beforetime (half dried) in June to avoid massive losses in July Dueto this reason although many elephants incidents reportedby respondents occurred in July the crop loss costs werenegligible From the interviews and meetings most (95)of elephant crop raiding took place during the nights andprolonged till early mornings when elephants were reportedto return to the protected areas

35 Local PreventionMitigation Measures and ConflictTrends Frequently usedmethods to deter elephants includedaudio instruments (56) such as shouting banging on

25

20

15

10

5

0

Perc

enta

ge (

) of r

espo

nden

ts

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Years

Figure 3 Responses of the interviewees on the human-elephantconflict (HEC) incidences over the past six (2010 to 2015) yearsacross the Rombo area

corrugated iron sheets tins and drums whistles Other HECmitigation measures as reported by respondents includedthe use of night visual instruments (24 eg lightingfires and torch lights) intervention by game rangers (19)and guarding fields (1) by the farmers themselvesRespondents claimed that elephants were becoming familiarto the methods rendering these to be less effective overtime Further they claimed that the techniques were labour-intensive and even included children in the activities Thereported incidents in the District Records indicated adecrease in HEC as 272 cases were reported in 2007 whileonly 66 cases were recorded in 2011 These records are inagreementwith the responses from local peoplewho reportedthat the overall HEC frequency has declined in Rombo(Figure 3)

36 HEC Hotspots across the Study Area The results showthat elephants were highly attracted by crops and henceHEC was most common in farm lands compared to otherland use areas The spatial analysis showed that the HEChotspots in Mengwe and Mashati divisions concentrated atlowland areas which were dominated by seasonal cropsespecially maize interspersed with only few settlementsFrom our interview meetings and District Records theselowland areas dominated by farms (particularly in Mengweand Mashati) were reported to have many conflict incidentsand were closer (about 30 to 10 km) to TWNP in KenyaIn these two divisions elephants were reported to comefrom TWNP and not KINAPATherefore the highland areascloser to KINAPA dominated by settlement and agroforestry(trees banana and coffee) representedHEC cold spots in ourmap In Tarakea division the elephants came from KINAPAand not TWNP Local people in this area cultivated theirseasonal crops in the forest plantations bordering KINAPA(Figure 1) Hence HEC hotspots concentrated inside the for-est plantations (Kamwanga EndonetNalemuru andRongai)bordering KINAPA where seasonal crops (mainly maize and

6 Advances in Ecology

N

0 5 10 20 30 40

(km)

HEC hotspots0 (very cold)1 (cold)2 (slightly cold)3 (slightly hot)4 (hot)5-6 (very hot)Lake Chala

Tsavo West National ParkKilimanjaro National ParkDivision boundaryUnstudied divisionsRombo DistrictKilimanjaro RegionTanzania

Figure 4 Human-elephant conflict (HEC) spots (ranging fromthe magnitude of zero [very cold] to six [very hotspot] areas) inRombo area The darker areas indicate hotspots (Only the threemost frequently visited areas by elephants (Mengwe Mashati andTarakea) were analyzed)

Irish potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)) were cultivated Areasoutside the forest dominated by settlement and agroforestryrepresented HEC cold spots (Figure 4)

4 Discussion

41 Human Perception Human-Elephant Conflict Incidentsand Costs While elephants were perceived as the most dan-gerous animals in our study area we also found various otherwild animal species to interact with local people Becauseof the level of destruction the elephants inflict rangingfrom severe crop raiding to killing people this species wasclaimed to bemost damaging and dangerous [19 20] In someareas farmers who also grow crops find that elephants andother wildlife can destroy entire swaths of their fields in asingle night [21] Under such circumstances some people inRombo abandoned their crops entirely which is supportedby a study in Longido in northern Tanzania where farmersrecently gave up growing crops because elephant damage wasso pervasive [22] In our study further negative attitudestowards elephants by local people have been attributed to theperception that elephants tend to make top soil less fertilethrough trampling Nutrient-rich top soils tend to be eroded

and to leach nutrients during heavy rains when herbaceouscover is being removed [23] However this perception is incontrast to [24 25] that indicated that elephant dung canincrease soil nutrients

Across the three study divisions crop raiding was themost frequently recorded and mentioned HEC This agreeswith a study in Zimbabwe where crops such as maize andsorghum were found to attract elephants [15] while in Ghanacocoa was most attractive [26] in India coffee seemed toattract elephants [27] and in Asia paddy [28] In our studyarea 82 of respondents mentioned maize to be highly pre-ferred by elephants compared to other crops congruent withfindings by [15 29] in Zimbabwe and Tanzania (Serengeti)respectively In our study area the cases for human mortalityby elephants were few similar to [20 30 31] contrary to astudy in Asia where human mortality through elephants washigh up to 50 people killed per year [28] HEC frequencyin the study area was strongly seasonal and occurred duringcropmaturity betweenMay and JulyThis is similar to studiesin Kenya where crop damage through raiding elephants washighest in August when crops had just matured [32] Wefound the costs of crop loss were about 300 USD per haand the costs per household were about 50 USD to 1000USD per month This is relatively high loss compared toother studies like in Cameroon which showed the cost ofelephant raiding was 195 USD per ha [33] and in Asia 200USD per year Elephant crop raiding (95) in this study tookplace during the nights and early mornings involving bothmale and female elephants similar to our study which is incontrast to findings by [28] that found that mainly solitarybulls attacked crops in Sri Lanka

42 Human-Elephant Conflicts Hotspot Areas In our studyin the lowland areas of Mengwe and Mashati elephants werereported to come from TWNP in Kenya to drink waterin Lake Chala especially during the dry season and theninvaded the nearby crop fields In Tarakea the elephants thatcaused conflictswerementioned to be coming fromKINAPAwhich is the nearest protected area from the farmland Thestudies conducted by [19 26] also concluded that it might beexpected that the proximity of a village or field to a protectedarea increases the likelihood of being affected by elephantsand other wild animals Our findings indicated that HEChotspots were found to be highest in Mengwe and Mashatidivisions (about 10 km from TWNP) with human populationdensities of 272 and 318 per km2 respectivelyThese densitiesare almost six times the national population density of 573people per km2 [14] The growth of the human populationaround PAs may have negative impacts on large mammalsand biodiversity through illegal hunting deforestation andhabitat encroachment [34 35] which ends up with blockageof migratory routes

We also found that in Rombomost HEC hotspots were infarmlands adjacent to protected areas which is in agreementwith [15 19 22 29 36] that found high HEC adjacentto protected areas and within migratory routes As muchas humansrsquo activities like agriculture affect large mammal(eg elephant) abundance and distribution through habitatloss and poachingoverhunting people and livestock also

Advances in Ecology 7

compete with wildlife for resources such as plant-derivedforage water and minerals resulting in various conflictsDuring the data collection in the field our participatoryobservations indicated that land use is rapidly changing inRombo [16] and wildlife habitats are declining fast The lowto medium elevation areas of Rombo received moderateannual rainfall (500mm) and thus the prospect of growingsome crops as well as more settlements being developed isimminentHECcold spotswere far away fromprotected areasand in highlands dominated by settlements and agroforestrywith planted trees and perennial crops like banana andcoffee While some studies in India show that elephants likecoffee [27] and around Serengeti Tanzania like banana [29]responses in our study showed that elephants do not oftenraid coffee or banana but rather prefer maize (Table 2)

43 Human-Elephant Conflict Trends In our study the HEChad decreased over the last six years This is in contrast toother studies [8] reported an increase inHEC ten years ago inZimbabwe Also [27] recorded an increase of HEC intensityover the last 10 years in India all of which were accompaniedwith a human population increase and the expansion offarms Contrary to this although the human population hasbeen growing and farms and settlements have expanded inthe Rombo area [14 16 37] HEC is declining This mightbe caused by the continued land use land cover changescoupled with an increase in human population in the nearbyprotected areas surrounding the farmland of the Rombo areawhichmight suppress elephants coming out of their protectedareas by blocking their migratory routes Decreasing HECincidents might also be caused by a decreasing elephantpopulation in the KINAPA ecosystem Up to five decadesago elephants and other large mammals migrated betweenTWNP and KINAPA through Rombo and occurred in highnumbers in Rombo particularly in the southern part ofKilimanjaro and in the lowland areas bordering TWNP [17]Due to increasing habitat fragmentation encroachment andpoaching for ivory trade some studies reported a decliningelephant population in the KINAPA ecosystem For instancein the 1970s the population was about 1200 elephants [10]and decreased to about 750 in 2003 [38] and further to 450in 2010 [18] while an estimate of 2142 elephants was recentlyrecorded in TWNP [13] Due to the blockage of themigratoryroutes in recent decades elephants are coming from TWNPand raid crops in lowland areas of Rombo and go back toTWNP In upland areas elephants come out from KINAPAraid the crops planted inside the forest plantation and go backto KINAPA [16 37]

44 Human Population and Its Implication to ElephantConservation The historical distribution of elephants andlarge mammals in Rombo area has been linked to humansettlements which largely occurred between 1930 and 1965and reduced the elephant distribution range to fewmigratoryelephant groups that would enter KINAPA from TWNP inthe east [10 17] This means that migration by elephants andother mammals used to occur on a regular basis betweenKINAPA and TWNP in Kenya to the east but very littleevidence was found that this migration still existed in this

studyThe number of people in RomboDistrict has increasedby 30 over the past 25 years [14 37] and this is likely to haveincreased competitionwith wildlife Generally savannas withhigh human populations also have high livestock numbersfarming activities and settlement [22] More people can alsomean more hunting pressure and thus more wildlife deaths[22 34] However from an anthropocentric point of viewconflicts with wildlife decrease as human populations riseand shift to smaller less dangerous species simply becausethe larger species disappear [22 37] This might be true forRombo area where there has been a decline in elephantpopulation in KINAPA by approximately 43 between 2003and 2010 [6 38] In this area humans have been competingwith elephants by converting their habitat into farmlandwhere they grow perennial and seasonal crops such asbananas coffee and maize [16] Therefore to attain elephantconservation and livelihood development it is necessary toconsider human population growth and distributions as thekey factor and come up with alternative land use plans

5 Conclusion

Given that no ecological study has ever been conducted inRombo area this is a new ground evidence generated fromthe data It also becomes the new beginning of science-based evidence to policy makers on how they can balancethe trade-offs between elephant conservation and humandevelopment Our assessment of the nature and the extentof HEC and its impact on conservation efforts providesimportant information to conservationists that are to meetthe challenges related to biodiversity loss We showed thatHEC hotspots are located in areas adjacent to PAs andcoincided with seasonal crop maturity especially maize inthe lowlands Short-term management measures such as theintroduction of alternative crops which are not attractiveto elephants to reduce HEC should be prioritized in areasbordering the PAs Damage prevention should focus on theseasonal crop like maize maturity and harvesting monthsOur study also showed that HEC incidents were decliningover the last six years despite increasing human settlementsand agricultural activity Althoughwedonot knowhowmanypeople this area can support without strongly diminishingwildlife populations patterns of human populations shouldbe taken into account when planning for long-termHECmit-igationmeasures Buffer zonesmay also be established in suchareas where human and wildlife coexistence is likely to occurLocal peoplemay benefit from coexistence if themechanismsfor sharing the profits from wildlife tourism for example arein place Our study shows how various locally collected datain combination with socioecological assessments interviewsand long-term records can successfully be applied to helphighlighting HEC hotspots and predicting their spatial andtemporal occurrence

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this paper

8 Advances in Ecology

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr A L Massawe the Wildlife Officerof Rombo District for providing secondary data on elephantconflict incidences in Rombo District as well as the VillageExecutive Officers E J Mtei Mr G J Kauki C Gwandu andM Mwanyange for their support in the field They furtherthank S Terengia for support in spatial analysis and H AMsuya M Iddy and N E Msuya for assisting during datacollection This work was supported by the Government ofTanzania through the Commission for Science and Tech-nology (COSTECH) and the German Academic ExchangeService (DAAD) as part of a PhD scholarship

References

[1] S M Redpath J Young A Evely W M Adams W J Suther-land A Whitehouse et al ldquoUnderstanding and managing con-servation conflictsrdquo Trends in Ecology amp Evolution vol 28 pp100ndash109 2013

[2] R E Hoare and J T Du Toit ldquoCoexistence between people andelephants inAfrican savannasrdquoConservation Biology vol 13 no3 pp 633ndash639 1999

[3] N W Sitati M J Walpole R J Smith and N Leader-WilliamsldquoPredicting spatial aspects of human-elephant conflictrdquo Journalof Applied Ecology vol 40 no 4 pp 667ndash677 2003

[4] M Mutinda G Chenge F Gakuya et al ldquoDetusking fence-breaker elephants as an approach in human-elephant conflictmitigationrdquo PLoS ONE vol 9 no 3 Article ID e91749 2014

[5] M Y Said J O Ogutu S C Kifugo O Makui R S Reid andJ de Leeuw ldquoEffects of extreme land fragmentation on wildlifeand livestock population abundance and distributionrdquo Journalfor Nature Conservation Elsevier GmbH vol 34 pp 151ndash1642016

[6] S Mduma A Lobora C Foley and J Trevor ldquoTanzania ele-phant management planrdquo Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute2010

[7] WCS ldquoHumanElephant ConflictMitigation inTanzaniardquoWildlConserv Soc Tanzania Program 2009

[8] R E Hoare ldquoVertically integrated Human-Elephant conflictmanagement system in Tanzania background and next stepsrdquoHuman-Elephant Confl Rev Case Stud pp 1ndash12 2007

[9] R R Hoffmeier-Karimi and B A Schulte ldquoAssessing perceivedand documented crop damage in a Tanzanian village impactedby human-elephant conflict (HEC)rdquo Pachyderm vol 2015 pp51ndash60 2015

[10] T A Afolayan ldquoEffects of elephant activities on forest plan-tations in the kilimanjaro forest-game reserve in northernTanzaniardquo Oikos vol 26 pp 405ndash410 1975

[11] S Wasser J Poole P Lee et al ldquoElephants Ivory and TraderdquoScience (80-) vol 327 pp 1331-1332 2010

[12] Y Chen J Marino Y Chen Q Tao C D Sullivan K Shi et alldquoPredicting hotspots of human-elephant conflict to informmit-igation strategies in xishuangbanna southwest Chinardquo PLOSONE vol 11 Article ID e0162035 2016

[13] S Ngene S Njumbi M Nzisa K Kimitei J Mukeka S Muyaet al ldquoStatus and trends of the elephant population in theTsavomdashMkomazi ecosystemrdquo Pachyderm vol 53 pp 38ndash502013

[14] URT ldquoPopulation and housing census population distributionby administrative areasrdquo 2013

[15] R E Hoare ldquoDeterminants of human-elephant conflict in aland-use mosaicrdquo Journal of Applied Ecology vol 36 no 5 pp689ndash700 1999

[16] N E Mmbaga L K Munishi and A C Treydte ldquoow dynamicsand drivers of land useland cover change impact elephant con-servation and agricultural livelihood development in RomboTanzaniardquo J Land Use Sci Taylor amp Francis vol 12 pp 168ndash1812017

[17] GChild ldquoSomenotes onmammals ofKilimanjarordquoTanganyikaNotes and Records vol 64 pp 77ndash89 1965

[18] D G Mpanduji and K Ngomello ldquoElephant movements andhome range determinations using GPSARGOS satellites andGIS programme Implication to conservation in southernTanzaniardquo in Proceedings of the 6th TAWIRI Annual ScientificConference pp 1ndash15 2007 httpwwwselous-niassa-corridororgfileadminpublicationsSNWC elephant movementsand home range determinationspdf

[19] M D Graham I Douglas-Hamilton W M Adams and P CLee ldquoThe movement of African elephants in a human-domi-nated land-use mosaicrdquo Animal Conservation vol 12 no 5 pp445ndash455 2009

[20] A Changrsquoa N de Souza J Muya et al ldquoScaling-up the use ofchili fences for reducing human-elephant conflict across land-scapes in Tanzaniardquo Tropical Conservation Science vol 9 no 2pp 921ndash930 2016

[21] S Gubbi ldquoPatterns and correlates of human-elephant conflictaround a south Indian reserverdquoBiological Conservation vol 148no 1 pp 88ndash95 2012

[22] R S Reid Savannans of our birth People wildlife and change inEast Africa University of Califonia Press London UK 2012

[23] R Liu J Wang J Shi et al ldquoRunoff characteristics and nutrientloss mechanism from plain farmland under simulated rainfallconditionsrdquo Science of the Total Environment vol 468-469 pp1069ndash1077 2014

[24] J Metsio Sienne R Buchwald and G Wittemyer ldquoDiffer-entiation in mineral constituents in elephant selected versusunselected water and soil resources at Central African bais(forest clearings)rdquoEuropean Journal ofWildlife Research vol 60no 2 pp 377ndash382 2014

[25] G E Soka and M E Ritchie ldquoLand-Cover legacy effectson arbuscular mycorrhizal abundance in human and wildlifedominated systems in tropical savannardquo Advances in Ecologyvol 2016 10 pages 2016

[26] F KHarich A C Treydte J Sauerborn andEHOwusu ldquoPeo-ple and wildlife Conflicts arising around the Bia ConservationArea in Ghanardquo Journal for Nature Conservation vol 21 no 5pp 342ndash349 2013

[27] P Bal C D Nath K M Nanaya C G Kushalappa andC Garcia ldquoElephants also like coffee Trends and drivers ofhuman-elephant conflicts in coffee agroforestry landscapes ofKodagu Western Ghats Indiardquo Environmental Managementvol 47 no 5 pp 789ndash801 2011

[28] C Santiapillai S Wijeyamohan G Bandara R AthurupanaN Dissanayake and B Read ldquoAn assessment of the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lankardquo Ceylon Journal of Science(Biological Sciences) vol 39 pp 21ndash33 2010

[29] A Mwakatobe J Nyahongo J Ntalwila and E Roskaft ldquoTheimpact of crop raiding by wild animals in communities sur-rounding the Serengeti National Parkrdquo Int J Biodivers Conservvol 6 pp 637ndash646 2014

[30] R Hoare ldquoAfrican elephants and humans in conflict theoutlook for co-existencerdquo Oryx vol 34 pp 34ndash38 2000

Advances in Ecology 5

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Cos

ts (U

SD)

HEC

inci

dent

s

Month

RecordsResponses from interviewCost for crops lost

Janu

ary

Febr

uary

Mar

ch

April

May

June July

Augu

st

Sept

embe

r

Oct

ober

Nov

embe

r

Dec

embe

r

Figure 2 Frequency of human-elephant conflict (HEC) and costsof crop loss across months based on the Rombo District Records(records 119899 = 387) and responses from interviews (119899 = 261) in theRombo area over the last 6 years

USD to 5000 USD per household per season (equivalent to50USD to 1000USDper household permonth) and occurredbetween April and June (Figure 2) The District Records andinformation from wildlife officers indicated that historicallythe elephants migrated from the nearby PAs (mainly TWNP)to KINAPA through Rombo area in groups of mixed ageand sex and ranging from 7 to 500 elephants Dependingon their numbers they damaged crops in the farmersrsquo fieldin Rombo as they move between the two PAs During suchevents local wildlife authorities have been cooperating withlocal people to move them away from the farms sometimesscaring them with the rubber bulletsThis approach has beenused in tense situations especially during cropping seasons asconflict management option although it is not considered bythe local people as a viable option in longer term in the areaThe majority of respondents (99) explained further thatthey did not receive any compensation for their losses Henceto avoid crop raiding they even harvest their maize beforetime (half dried) in June to avoid massive losses in July Dueto this reason although many elephants incidents reportedby respondents occurred in July the crop loss costs werenegligible From the interviews and meetings most (95)of elephant crop raiding took place during the nights andprolonged till early mornings when elephants were reportedto return to the protected areas

35 Local PreventionMitigation Measures and ConflictTrends Frequently usedmethods to deter elephants includedaudio instruments (56) such as shouting banging on

25

20

15

10

5

0

Perc

enta

ge (

) of r

espo

nden

ts

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Years

Figure 3 Responses of the interviewees on the human-elephantconflict (HEC) incidences over the past six (2010 to 2015) yearsacross the Rombo area

corrugated iron sheets tins and drums whistles Other HECmitigation measures as reported by respondents includedthe use of night visual instruments (24 eg lightingfires and torch lights) intervention by game rangers (19)and guarding fields (1) by the farmers themselvesRespondents claimed that elephants were becoming familiarto the methods rendering these to be less effective overtime Further they claimed that the techniques were labour-intensive and even included children in the activities Thereported incidents in the District Records indicated adecrease in HEC as 272 cases were reported in 2007 whileonly 66 cases were recorded in 2011 These records are inagreementwith the responses from local peoplewho reportedthat the overall HEC frequency has declined in Rombo(Figure 3)

36 HEC Hotspots across the Study Area The results showthat elephants were highly attracted by crops and henceHEC was most common in farm lands compared to otherland use areas The spatial analysis showed that the HEChotspots in Mengwe and Mashati divisions concentrated atlowland areas which were dominated by seasonal cropsespecially maize interspersed with only few settlementsFrom our interview meetings and District Records theselowland areas dominated by farms (particularly in Mengweand Mashati) were reported to have many conflict incidentsand were closer (about 30 to 10 km) to TWNP in KenyaIn these two divisions elephants were reported to comefrom TWNP and not KINAPATherefore the highland areascloser to KINAPA dominated by settlement and agroforestry(trees banana and coffee) representedHEC cold spots in ourmap In Tarakea division the elephants came from KINAPAand not TWNP Local people in this area cultivated theirseasonal crops in the forest plantations bordering KINAPA(Figure 1) Hence HEC hotspots concentrated inside the for-est plantations (Kamwanga EndonetNalemuru andRongai)bordering KINAPA where seasonal crops (mainly maize and

6 Advances in Ecology

N

0 5 10 20 30 40

(km)

HEC hotspots0 (very cold)1 (cold)2 (slightly cold)3 (slightly hot)4 (hot)5-6 (very hot)Lake Chala

Tsavo West National ParkKilimanjaro National ParkDivision boundaryUnstudied divisionsRombo DistrictKilimanjaro RegionTanzania

Figure 4 Human-elephant conflict (HEC) spots (ranging fromthe magnitude of zero [very cold] to six [very hotspot] areas) inRombo area The darker areas indicate hotspots (Only the threemost frequently visited areas by elephants (Mengwe Mashati andTarakea) were analyzed)

Irish potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)) were cultivated Areasoutside the forest dominated by settlement and agroforestryrepresented HEC cold spots (Figure 4)

4 Discussion

41 Human Perception Human-Elephant Conflict Incidentsand Costs While elephants were perceived as the most dan-gerous animals in our study area we also found various otherwild animal species to interact with local people Becauseof the level of destruction the elephants inflict rangingfrom severe crop raiding to killing people this species wasclaimed to bemost damaging and dangerous [19 20] In someareas farmers who also grow crops find that elephants andother wildlife can destroy entire swaths of their fields in asingle night [21] Under such circumstances some people inRombo abandoned their crops entirely which is supportedby a study in Longido in northern Tanzania where farmersrecently gave up growing crops because elephant damage wasso pervasive [22] In our study further negative attitudestowards elephants by local people have been attributed to theperception that elephants tend to make top soil less fertilethrough trampling Nutrient-rich top soils tend to be eroded

and to leach nutrients during heavy rains when herbaceouscover is being removed [23] However this perception is incontrast to [24 25] that indicated that elephant dung canincrease soil nutrients

Across the three study divisions crop raiding was themost frequently recorded and mentioned HEC This agreeswith a study in Zimbabwe where crops such as maize andsorghum were found to attract elephants [15] while in Ghanacocoa was most attractive [26] in India coffee seemed toattract elephants [27] and in Asia paddy [28] In our studyarea 82 of respondents mentioned maize to be highly pre-ferred by elephants compared to other crops congruent withfindings by [15 29] in Zimbabwe and Tanzania (Serengeti)respectively In our study area the cases for human mortalityby elephants were few similar to [20 30 31] contrary to astudy in Asia where human mortality through elephants washigh up to 50 people killed per year [28] HEC frequencyin the study area was strongly seasonal and occurred duringcropmaturity betweenMay and JulyThis is similar to studiesin Kenya where crop damage through raiding elephants washighest in August when crops had just matured [32] Wefound the costs of crop loss were about 300 USD per haand the costs per household were about 50 USD to 1000USD per month This is relatively high loss compared toother studies like in Cameroon which showed the cost ofelephant raiding was 195 USD per ha [33] and in Asia 200USD per year Elephant crop raiding (95) in this study tookplace during the nights and early mornings involving bothmale and female elephants similar to our study which is incontrast to findings by [28] that found that mainly solitarybulls attacked crops in Sri Lanka

42 Human-Elephant Conflicts Hotspot Areas In our studyin the lowland areas of Mengwe and Mashati elephants werereported to come from TWNP in Kenya to drink waterin Lake Chala especially during the dry season and theninvaded the nearby crop fields In Tarakea the elephants thatcaused conflictswerementioned to be coming fromKINAPAwhich is the nearest protected area from the farmland Thestudies conducted by [19 26] also concluded that it might beexpected that the proximity of a village or field to a protectedarea increases the likelihood of being affected by elephantsand other wild animals Our findings indicated that HEChotspots were found to be highest in Mengwe and Mashatidivisions (about 10 km from TWNP) with human populationdensities of 272 and 318 per km2 respectivelyThese densitiesare almost six times the national population density of 573people per km2 [14] The growth of the human populationaround PAs may have negative impacts on large mammalsand biodiversity through illegal hunting deforestation andhabitat encroachment [34 35] which ends up with blockageof migratory routes

We also found that in Rombomost HEC hotspots were infarmlands adjacent to protected areas which is in agreementwith [15 19 22 29 36] that found high HEC adjacentto protected areas and within migratory routes As muchas humansrsquo activities like agriculture affect large mammal(eg elephant) abundance and distribution through habitatloss and poachingoverhunting people and livestock also

Advances in Ecology 7

compete with wildlife for resources such as plant-derivedforage water and minerals resulting in various conflictsDuring the data collection in the field our participatoryobservations indicated that land use is rapidly changing inRombo [16] and wildlife habitats are declining fast The lowto medium elevation areas of Rombo received moderateannual rainfall (500mm) and thus the prospect of growingsome crops as well as more settlements being developed isimminentHECcold spotswere far away fromprotected areasand in highlands dominated by settlements and agroforestrywith planted trees and perennial crops like banana andcoffee While some studies in India show that elephants likecoffee [27] and around Serengeti Tanzania like banana [29]responses in our study showed that elephants do not oftenraid coffee or banana but rather prefer maize (Table 2)

43 Human-Elephant Conflict Trends In our study the HEChad decreased over the last six years This is in contrast toother studies [8] reported an increase inHEC ten years ago inZimbabwe Also [27] recorded an increase of HEC intensityover the last 10 years in India all of which were accompaniedwith a human population increase and the expansion offarms Contrary to this although the human population hasbeen growing and farms and settlements have expanded inthe Rombo area [14 16 37] HEC is declining This mightbe caused by the continued land use land cover changescoupled with an increase in human population in the nearbyprotected areas surrounding the farmland of the Rombo areawhichmight suppress elephants coming out of their protectedareas by blocking their migratory routes Decreasing HECincidents might also be caused by a decreasing elephantpopulation in the KINAPA ecosystem Up to five decadesago elephants and other large mammals migrated betweenTWNP and KINAPA through Rombo and occurred in highnumbers in Rombo particularly in the southern part ofKilimanjaro and in the lowland areas bordering TWNP [17]Due to increasing habitat fragmentation encroachment andpoaching for ivory trade some studies reported a decliningelephant population in the KINAPA ecosystem For instancein the 1970s the population was about 1200 elephants [10]and decreased to about 750 in 2003 [38] and further to 450in 2010 [18] while an estimate of 2142 elephants was recentlyrecorded in TWNP [13] Due to the blockage of themigratoryroutes in recent decades elephants are coming from TWNPand raid crops in lowland areas of Rombo and go back toTWNP In upland areas elephants come out from KINAPAraid the crops planted inside the forest plantation and go backto KINAPA [16 37]

44 Human Population and Its Implication to ElephantConservation The historical distribution of elephants andlarge mammals in Rombo area has been linked to humansettlements which largely occurred between 1930 and 1965and reduced the elephant distribution range to fewmigratoryelephant groups that would enter KINAPA from TWNP inthe east [10 17] This means that migration by elephants andother mammals used to occur on a regular basis betweenKINAPA and TWNP in Kenya to the east but very littleevidence was found that this migration still existed in this

studyThe number of people in RomboDistrict has increasedby 30 over the past 25 years [14 37] and this is likely to haveincreased competitionwith wildlife Generally savannas withhigh human populations also have high livestock numbersfarming activities and settlement [22] More people can alsomean more hunting pressure and thus more wildlife deaths[22 34] However from an anthropocentric point of viewconflicts with wildlife decrease as human populations riseand shift to smaller less dangerous species simply becausethe larger species disappear [22 37] This might be true forRombo area where there has been a decline in elephantpopulation in KINAPA by approximately 43 between 2003and 2010 [6 38] In this area humans have been competingwith elephants by converting their habitat into farmlandwhere they grow perennial and seasonal crops such asbananas coffee and maize [16] Therefore to attain elephantconservation and livelihood development it is necessary toconsider human population growth and distributions as thekey factor and come up with alternative land use plans

5 Conclusion

Given that no ecological study has ever been conducted inRombo area this is a new ground evidence generated fromthe data It also becomes the new beginning of science-based evidence to policy makers on how they can balancethe trade-offs between elephant conservation and humandevelopment Our assessment of the nature and the extentof HEC and its impact on conservation efforts providesimportant information to conservationists that are to meetthe challenges related to biodiversity loss We showed thatHEC hotspots are located in areas adjacent to PAs andcoincided with seasonal crop maturity especially maize inthe lowlands Short-term management measures such as theintroduction of alternative crops which are not attractiveto elephants to reduce HEC should be prioritized in areasbordering the PAs Damage prevention should focus on theseasonal crop like maize maturity and harvesting monthsOur study also showed that HEC incidents were decliningover the last six years despite increasing human settlementsand agricultural activity Althoughwedonot knowhowmanypeople this area can support without strongly diminishingwildlife populations patterns of human populations shouldbe taken into account when planning for long-termHECmit-igationmeasures Buffer zonesmay also be established in suchareas where human and wildlife coexistence is likely to occurLocal peoplemay benefit from coexistence if themechanismsfor sharing the profits from wildlife tourism for example arein place Our study shows how various locally collected datain combination with socioecological assessments interviewsand long-term records can successfully be applied to helphighlighting HEC hotspots and predicting their spatial andtemporal occurrence

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this paper

8 Advances in Ecology

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr A L Massawe the Wildlife Officerof Rombo District for providing secondary data on elephantconflict incidences in Rombo District as well as the VillageExecutive Officers E J Mtei Mr G J Kauki C Gwandu andM Mwanyange for their support in the field They furtherthank S Terengia for support in spatial analysis and H AMsuya M Iddy and N E Msuya for assisting during datacollection This work was supported by the Government ofTanzania through the Commission for Science and Tech-nology (COSTECH) and the German Academic ExchangeService (DAAD) as part of a PhD scholarship

References

[1] S M Redpath J Young A Evely W M Adams W J Suther-land A Whitehouse et al ldquoUnderstanding and managing con-servation conflictsrdquo Trends in Ecology amp Evolution vol 28 pp100ndash109 2013

[2] R E Hoare and J T Du Toit ldquoCoexistence between people andelephants inAfrican savannasrdquoConservation Biology vol 13 no3 pp 633ndash639 1999

[3] N W Sitati M J Walpole R J Smith and N Leader-WilliamsldquoPredicting spatial aspects of human-elephant conflictrdquo Journalof Applied Ecology vol 40 no 4 pp 667ndash677 2003

[4] M Mutinda G Chenge F Gakuya et al ldquoDetusking fence-breaker elephants as an approach in human-elephant conflictmitigationrdquo PLoS ONE vol 9 no 3 Article ID e91749 2014

[5] M Y Said J O Ogutu S C Kifugo O Makui R S Reid andJ de Leeuw ldquoEffects of extreme land fragmentation on wildlifeand livestock population abundance and distributionrdquo Journalfor Nature Conservation Elsevier GmbH vol 34 pp 151ndash1642016

[6] S Mduma A Lobora C Foley and J Trevor ldquoTanzania ele-phant management planrdquo Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute2010

[7] WCS ldquoHumanElephant ConflictMitigation inTanzaniardquoWildlConserv Soc Tanzania Program 2009

[8] R E Hoare ldquoVertically integrated Human-Elephant conflictmanagement system in Tanzania background and next stepsrdquoHuman-Elephant Confl Rev Case Stud pp 1ndash12 2007

[9] R R Hoffmeier-Karimi and B A Schulte ldquoAssessing perceivedand documented crop damage in a Tanzanian village impactedby human-elephant conflict (HEC)rdquo Pachyderm vol 2015 pp51ndash60 2015

[10] T A Afolayan ldquoEffects of elephant activities on forest plan-tations in the kilimanjaro forest-game reserve in northernTanzaniardquo Oikos vol 26 pp 405ndash410 1975

[11] S Wasser J Poole P Lee et al ldquoElephants Ivory and TraderdquoScience (80-) vol 327 pp 1331-1332 2010

[12] Y Chen J Marino Y Chen Q Tao C D Sullivan K Shi et alldquoPredicting hotspots of human-elephant conflict to informmit-igation strategies in xishuangbanna southwest Chinardquo PLOSONE vol 11 Article ID e0162035 2016

[13] S Ngene S Njumbi M Nzisa K Kimitei J Mukeka S Muyaet al ldquoStatus and trends of the elephant population in theTsavomdashMkomazi ecosystemrdquo Pachyderm vol 53 pp 38ndash502013

[14] URT ldquoPopulation and housing census population distributionby administrative areasrdquo 2013

[15] R E Hoare ldquoDeterminants of human-elephant conflict in aland-use mosaicrdquo Journal of Applied Ecology vol 36 no 5 pp689ndash700 1999

[16] N E Mmbaga L K Munishi and A C Treydte ldquoow dynamicsand drivers of land useland cover change impact elephant con-servation and agricultural livelihood development in RomboTanzaniardquo J Land Use Sci Taylor amp Francis vol 12 pp 168ndash1812017

[17] GChild ldquoSomenotes onmammals ofKilimanjarordquoTanganyikaNotes and Records vol 64 pp 77ndash89 1965

[18] D G Mpanduji and K Ngomello ldquoElephant movements andhome range determinations using GPSARGOS satellites andGIS programme Implication to conservation in southernTanzaniardquo in Proceedings of the 6th TAWIRI Annual ScientificConference pp 1ndash15 2007 httpwwwselous-niassa-corridororgfileadminpublicationsSNWC elephant movementsand home range determinationspdf

[19] M D Graham I Douglas-Hamilton W M Adams and P CLee ldquoThe movement of African elephants in a human-domi-nated land-use mosaicrdquo Animal Conservation vol 12 no 5 pp445ndash455 2009

[20] A Changrsquoa N de Souza J Muya et al ldquoScaling-up the use ofchili fences for reducing human-elephant conflict across land-scapes in Tanzaniardquo Tropical Conservation Science vol 9 no 2pp 921ndash930 2016

[21] S Gubbi ldquoPatterns and correlates of human-elephant conflictaround a south Indian reserverdquoBiological Conservation vol 148no 1 pp 88ndash95 2012

[22] R S Reid Savannans of our birth People wildlife and change inEast Africa University of Califonia Press London UK 2012

[23] R Liu J Wang J Shi et al ldquoRunoff characteristics and nutrientloss mechanism from plain farmland under simulated rainfallconditionsrdquo Science of the Total Environment vol 468-469 pp1069ndash1077 2014

[24] J Metsio Sienne R Buchwald and G Wittemyer ldquoDiffer-entiation in mineral constituents in elephant selected versusunselected water and soil resources at Central African bais(forest clearings)rdquoEuropean Journal ofWildlife Research vol 60no 2 pp 377ndash382 2014

[25] G E Soka and M E Ritchie ldquoLand-Cover legacy effectson arbuscular mycorrhizal abundance in human and wildlifedominated systems in tropical savannardquo Advances in Ecologyvol 2016 10 pages 2016

[26] F KHarich A C Treydte J Sauerborn andEHOwusu ldquoPeo-ple and wildlife Conflicts arising around the Bia ConservationArea in Ghanardquo Journal for Nature Conservation vol 21 no 5pp 342ndash349 2013

[27] P Bal C D Nath K M Nanaya C G Kushalappa andC Garcia ldquoElephants also like coffee Trends and drivers ofhuman-elephant conflicts in coffee agroforestry landscapes ofKodagu Western Ghats Indiardquo Environmental Managementvol 47 no 5 pp 789ndash801 2011

[28] C Santiapillai S Wijeyamohan G Bandara R AthurupanaN Dissanayake and B Read ldquoAn assessment of the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lankardquo Ceylon Journal of Science(Biological Sciences) vol 39 pp 21ndash33 2010

[29] A Mwakatobe J Nyahongo J Ntalwila and E Roskaft ldquoTheimpact of crop raiding by wild animals in communities sur-rounding the Serengeti National Parkrdquo Int J Biodivers Conservvol 6 pp 637ndash646 2014

[30] R Hoare ldquoAfrican elephants and humans in conflict theoutlook for co-existencerdquo Oryx vol 34 pp 34ndash38 2000

6 Advances in Ecology

N

0 5 10 20 30 40

(km)

HEC hotspots0 (very cold)1 (cold)2 (slightly cold)3 (slightly hot)4 (hot)5-6 (very hot)Lake Chala

Tsavo West National ParkKilimanjaro National ParkDivision boundaryUnstudied divisionsRombo DistrictKilimanjaro RegionTanzania

Figure 4 Human-elephant conflict (HEC) spots (ranging fromthe magnitude of zero [very cold] to six [very hotspot] areas) inRombo area The darker areas indicate hotspots (Only the threemost frequently visited areas by elephants (Mengwe Mashati andTarakea) were analyzed)

Irish potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)) were cultivated Areasoutside the forest dominated by settlement and agroforestryrepresented HEC cold spots (Figure 4)

4 Discussion

41 Human Perception Human-Elephant Conflict Incidentsand Costs While elephants were perceived as the most dan-gerous animals in our study area we also found various otherwild animal species to interact with local people Becauseof the level of destruction the elephants inflict rangingfrom severe crop raiding to killing people this species wasclaimed to bemost damaging and dangerous [19 20] In someareas farmers who also grow crops find that elephants andother wildlife can destroy entire swaths of their fields in asingle night [21] Under such circumstances some people inRombo abandoned their crops entirely which is supportedby a study in Longido in northern Tanzania where farmersrecently gave up growing crops because elephant damage wasso pervasive [22] In our study further negative attitudestowards elephants by local people have been attributed to theperception that elephants tend to make top soil less fertilethrough trampling Nutrient-rich top soils tend to be eroded

and to leach nutrients during heavy rains when herbaceouscover is being removed [23] However this perception is incontrast to [24 25] that indicated that elephant dung canincrease soil nutrients

Across the three study divisions crop raiding was themost frequently recorded and mentioned HEC This agreeswith a study in Zimbabwe where crops such as maize andsorghum were found to attract elephants [15] while in Ghanacocoa was most attractive [26] in India coffee seemed toattract elephants [27] and in Asia paddy [28] In our studyarea 82 of respondents mentioned maize to be highly pre-ferred by elephants compared to other crops congruent withfindings by [15 29] in Zimbabwe and Tanzania (Serengeti)respectively In our study area the cases for human mortalityby elephants were few similar to [20 30 31] contrary to astudy in Asia where human mortality through elephants washigh up to 50 people killed per year [28] HEC frequencyin the study area was strongly seasonal and occurred duringcropmaturity betweenMay and JulyThis is similar to studiesin Kenya where crop damage through raiding elephants washighest in August when crops had just matured [32] Wefound the costs of crop loss were about 300 USD per haand the costs per household were about 50 USD to 1000USD per month This is relatively high loss compared toother studies like in Cameroon which showed the cost ofelephant raiding was 195 USD per ha [33] and in Asia 200USD per year Elephant crop raiding (95) in this study tookplace during the nights and early mornings involving bothmale and female elephants similar to our study which is incontrast to findings by [28] that found that mainly solitarybulls attacked crops in Sri Lanka

42 Human-Elephant Conflicts Hotspot Areas In our studyin the lowland areas of Mengwe and Mashati elephants werereported to come from TWNP in Kenya to drink waterin Lake Chala especially during the dry season and theninvaded the nearby crop fields In Tarakea the elephants thatcaused conflictswerementioned to be coming fromKINAPAwhich is the nearest protected area from the farmland Thestudies conducted by [19 26] also concluded that it might beexpected that the proximity of a village or field to a protectedarea increases the likelihood of being affected by elephantsand other wild animals Our findings indicated that HEChotspots were found to be highest in Mengwe and Mashatidivisions (about 10 km from TWNP) with human populationdensities of 272 and 318 per km2 respectivelyThese densitiesare almost six times the national population density of 573people per km2 [14] The growth of the human populationaround PAs may have negative impacts on large mammalsand biodiversity through illegal hunting deforestation andhabitat encroachment [34 35] which ends up with blockageof migratory routes

We also found that in Rombomost HEC hotspots were infarmlands adjacent to protected areas which is in agreementwith [15 19 22 29 36] that found high HEC adjacentto protected areas and within migratory routes As muchas humansrsquo activities like agriculture affect large mammal(eg elephant) abundance and distribution through habitatloss and poachingoverhunting people and livestock also

Advances in Ecology 7

compete with wildlife for resources such as plant-derivedforage water and minerals resulting in various conflictsDuring the data collection in the field our participatoryobservations indicated that land use is rapidly changing inRombo [16] and wildlife habitats are declining fast The lowto medium elevation areas of Rombo received moderateannual rainfall (500mm) and thus the prospect of growingsome crops as well as more settlements being developed isimminentHECcold spotswere far away fromprotected areasand in highlands dominated by settlements and agroforestrywith planted trees and perennial crops like banana andcoffee While some studies in India show that elephants likecoffee [27] and around Serengeti Tanzania like banana [29]responses in our study showed that elephants do not oftenraid coffee or banana but rather prefer maize (Table 2)

43 Human-Elephant Conflict Trends In our study the HEChad decreased over the last six years This is in contrast toother studies [8] reported an increase inHEC ten years ago inZimbabwe Also [27] recorded an increase of HEC intensityover the last 10 years in India all of which were accompaniedwith a human population increase and the expansion offarms Contrary to this although the human population hasbeen growing and farms and settlements have expanded inthe Rombo area [14 16 37] HEC is declining This mightbe caused by the continued land use land cover changescoupled with an increase in human population in the nearbyprotected areas surrounding the farmland of the Rombo areawhichmight suppress elephants coming out of their protectedareas by blocking their migratory routes Decreasing HECincidents might also be caused by a decreasing elephantpopulation in the KINAPA ecosystem Up to five decadesago elephants and other large mammals migrated betweenTWNP and KINAPA through Rombo and occurred in highnumbers in Rombo particularly in the southern part ofKilimanjaro and in the lowland areas bordering TWNP [17]Due to increasing habitat fragmentation encroachment andpoaching for ivory trade some studies reported a decliningelephant population in the KINAPA ecosystem For instancein the 1970s the population was about 1200 elephants [10]and decreased to about 750 in 2003 [38] and further to 450in 2010 [18] while an estimate of 2142 elephants was recentlyrecorded in TWNP [13] Due to the blockage of themigratoryroutes in recent decades elephants are coming from TWNPand raid crops in lowland areas of Rombo and go back toTWNP In upland areas elephants come out from KINAPAraid the crops planted inside the forest plantation and go backto KINAPA [16 37]

44 Human Population and Its Implication to ElephantConservation The historical distribution of elephants andlarge mammals in Rombo area has been linked to humansettlements which largely occurred between 1930 and 1965and reduced the elephant distribution range to fewmigratoryelephant groups that would enter KINAPA from TWNP inthe east [10 17] This means that migration by elephants andother mammals used to occur on a regular basis betweenKINAPA and TWNP in Kenya to the east but very littleevidence was found that this migration still existed in this

studyThe number of people in RomboDistrict has increasedby 30 over the past 25 years [14 37] and this is likely to haveincreased competitionwith wildlife Generally savannas withhigh human populations also have high livestock numbersfarming activities and settlement [22] More people can alsomean more hunting pressure and thus more wildlife deaths[22 34] However from an anthropocentric point of viewconflicts with wildlife decrease as human populations riseand shift to smaller less dangerous species simply becausethe larger species disappear [22 37] This might be true forRombo area where there has been a decline in elephantpopulation in KINAPA by approximately 43 between 2003and 2010 [6 38] In this area humans have been competingwith elephants by converting their habitat into farmlandwhere they grow perennial and seasonal crops such asbananas coffee and maize [16] Therefore to attain elephantconservation and livelihood development it is necessary toconsider human population growth and distributions as thekey factor and come up with alternative land use plans

5 Conclusion

Given that no ecological study has ever been conducted inRombo area this is a new ground evidence generated fromthe data It also becomes the new beginning of science-based evidence to policy makers on how they can balancethe trade-offs between elephant conservation and humandevelopment Our assessment of the nature and the extentof HEC and its impact on conservation efforts providesimportant information to conservationists that are to meetthe challenges related to biodiversity loss We showed thatHEC hotspots are located in areas adjacent to PAs andcoincided with seasonal crop maturity especially maize inthe lowlands Short-term management measures such as theintroduction of alternative crops which are not attractiveto elephants to reduce HEC should be prioritized in areasbordering the PAs Damage prevention should focus on theseasonal crop like maize maturity and harvesting monthsOur study also showed that HEC incidents were decliningover the last six years despite increasing human settlementsand agricultural activity Althoughwedonot knowhowmanypeople this area can support without strongly diminishingwildlife populations patterns of human populations shouldbe taken into account when planning for long-termHECmit-igationmeasures Buffer zonesmay also be established in suchareas where human and wildlife coexistence is likely to occurLocal peoplemay benefit from coexistence if themechanismsfor sharing the profits from wildlife tourism for example arein place Our study shows how various locally collected datain combination with socioecological assessments interviewsand long-term records can successfully be applied to helphighlighting HEC hotspots and predicting their spatial andtemporal occurrence

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this paper

8 Advances in Ecology

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr A L Massawe the Wildlife Officerof Rombo District for providing secondary data on elephantconflict incidences in Rombo District as well as the VillageExecutive Officers E J Mtei Mr G J Kauki C Gwandu andM Mwanyange for their support in the field They furtherthank S Terengia for support in spatial analysis and H AMsuya M Iddy and N E Msuya for assisting during datacollection This work was supported by the Government ofTanzania through the Commission for Science and Tech-nology (COSTECH) and the German Academic ExchangeService (DAAD) as part of a PhD scholarship

References

[1] S M Redpath J Young A Evely W M Adams W J Suther-land A Whitehouse et al ldquoUnderstanding and managing con-servation conflictsrdquo Trends in Ecology amp Evolution vol 28 pp100ndash109 2013

[2] R E Hoare and J T Du Toit ldquoCoexistence between people andelephants inAfrican savannasrdquoConservation Biology vol 13 no3 pp 633ndash639 1999

[3] N W Sitati M J Walpole R J Smith and N Leader-WilliamsldquoPredicting spatial aspects of human-elephant conflictrdquo Journalof Applied Ecology vol 40 no 4 pp 667ndash677 2003

[4] M Mutinda G Chenge F Gakuya et al ldquoDetusking fence-breaker elephants as an approach in human-elephant conflictmitigationrdquo PLoS ONE vol 9 no 3 Article ID e91749 2014

[5] M Y Said J O Ogutu S C Kifugo O Makui R S Reid andJ de Leeuw ldquoEffects of extreme land fragmentation on wildlifeand livestock population abundance and distributionrdquo Journalfor Nature Conservation Elsevier GmbH vol 34 pp 151ndash1642016

[6] S Mduma A Lobora C Foley and J Trevor ldquoTanzania ele-phant management planrdquo Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute2010

[7] WCS ldquoHumanElephant ConflictMitigation inTanzaniardquoWildlConserv Soc Tanzania Program 2009

[8] R E Hoare ldquoVertically integrated Human-Elephant conflictmanagement system in Tanzania background and next stepsrdquoHuman-Elephant Confl Rev Case Stud pp 1ndash12 2007

[9] R R Hoffmeier-Karimi and B A Schulte ldquoAssessing perceivedand documented crop damage in a Tanzanian village impactedby human-elephant conflict (HEC)rdquo Pachyderm vol 2015 pp51ndash60 2015

[10] T A Afolayan ldquoEffects of elephant activities on forest plan-tations in the kilimanjaro forest-game reserve in northernTanzaniardquo Oikos vol 26 pp 405ndash410 1975

[11] S Wasser J Poole P Lee et al ldquoElephants Ivory and TraderdquoScience (80-) vol 327 pp 1331-1332 2010

[12] Y Chen J Marino Y Chen Q Tao C D Sullivan K Shi et alldquoPredicting hotspots of human-elephant conflict to informmit-igation strategies in xishuangbanna southwest Chinardquo PLOSONE vol 11 Article ID e0162035 2016

[13] S Ngene S Njumbi M Nzisa K Kimitei J Mukeka S Muyaet al ldquoStatus and trends of the elephant population in theTsavomdashMkomazi ecosystemrdquo Pachyderm vol 53 pp 38ndash502013

[14] URT ldquoPopulation and housing census population distributionby administrative areasrdquo 2013

[15] R E Hoare ldquoDeterminants of human-elephant conflict in aland-use mosaicrdquo Journal of Applied Ecology vol 36 no 5 pp689ndash700 1999

[16] N E Mmbaga L K Munishi and A C Treydte ldquoow dynamicsand drivers of land useland cover change impact elephant con-servation and agricultural livelihood development in RomboTanzaniardquo J Land Use Sci Taylor amp Francis vol 12 pp 168ndash1812017

[17] GChild ldquoSomenotes onmammals ofKilimanjarordquoTanganyikaNotes and Records vol 64 pp 77ndash89 1965

[18] D G Mpanduji and K Ngomello ldquoElephant movements andhome range determinations using GPSARGOS satellites andGIS programme Implication to conservation in southernTanzaniardquo in Proceedings of the 6th TAWIRI Annual ScientificConference pp 1ndash15 2007 httpwwwselous-niassa-corridororgfileadminpublicationsSNWC elephant movementsand home range determinationspdf

[19] M D Graham I Douglas-Hamilton W M Adams and P CLee ldquoThe movement of African elephants in a human-domi-nated land-use mosaicrdquo Animal Conservation vol 12 no 5 pp445ndash455 2009

[20] A Changrsquoa N de Souza J Muya et al ldquoScaling-up the use ofchili fences for reducing human-elephant conflict across land-scapes in Tanzaniardquo Tropical Conservation Science vol 9 no 2pp 921ndash930 2016

[21] S Gubbi ldquoPatterns and correlates of human-elephant conflictaround a south Indian reserverdquoBiological Conservation vol 148no 1 pp 88ndash95 2012

[22] R S Reid Savannans of our birth People wildlife and change inEast Africa University of Califonia Press London UK 2012

[23] R Liu J Wang J Shi et al ldquoRunoff characteristics and nutrientloss mechanism from plain farmland under simulated rainfallconditionsrdquo Science of the Total Environment vol 468-469 pp1069ndash1077 2014

[24] J Metsio Sienne R Buchwald and G Wittemyer ldquoDiffer-entiation in mineral constituents in elephant selected versusunselected water and soil resources at Central African bais(forest clearings)rdquoEuropean Journal ofWildlife Research vol 60no 2 pp 377ndash382 2014

[25] G E Soka and M E Ritchie ldquoLand-Cover legacy effectson arbuscular mycorrhizal abundance in human and wildlifedominated systems in tropical savannardquo Advances in Ecologyvol 2016 10 pages 2016

[26] F KHarich A C Treydte J Sauerborn andEHOwusu ldquoPeo-ple and wildlife Conflicts arising around the Bia ConservationArea in Ghanardquo Journal for Nature Conservation vol 21 no 5pp 342ndash349 2013

[27] P Bal C D Nath K M Nanaya C G Kushalappa andC Garcia ldquoElephants also like coffee Trends and drivers ofhuman-elephant conflicts in coffee agroforestry landscapes ofKodagu Western Ghats Indiardquo Environmental Managementvol 47 no 5 pp 789ndash801 2011

[28] C Santiapillai S Wijeyamohan G Bandara R AthurupanaN Dissanayake and B Read ldquoAn assessment of the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lankardquo Ceylon Journal of Science(Biological Sciences) vol 39 pp 21ndash33 2010

[29] A Mwakatobe J Nyahongo J Ntalwila and E Roskaft ldquoTheimpact of crop raiding by wild animals in communities sur-rounding the Serengeti National Parkrdquo Int J Biodivers Conservvol 6 pp 637ndash646 2014

[30] R Hoare ldquoAfrican elephants and humans in conflict theoutlook for co-existencerdquo Oryx vol 34 pp 34ndash38 2000

Advances in Ecology 7

compete with wildlife for resources such as plant-derivedforage water and minerals resulting in various conflictsDuring the data collection in the field our participatoryobservations indicated that land use is rapidly changing inRombo [16] and wildlife habitats are declining fast The lowto medium elevation areas of Rombo received moderateannual rainfall (500mm) and thus the prospect of growingsome crops as well as more settlements being developed isimminentHECcold spotswere far away fromprotected areasand in highlands dominated by settlements and agroforestrywith planted trees and perennial crops like banana andcoffee While some studies in India show that elephants likecoffee [27] and around Serengeti Tanzania like banana [29]responses in our study showed that elephants do not oftenraid coffee or banana but rather prefer maize (Table 2)

43 Human-Elephant Conflict Trends In our study the HEChad decreased over the last six years This is in contrast toother studies [8] reported an increase inHEC ten years ago inZimbabwe Also [27] recorded an increase of HEC intensityover the last 10 years in India all of which were accompaniedwith a human population increase and the expansion offarms Contrary to this although the human population hasbeen growing and farms and settlements have expanded inthe Rombo area [14 16 37] HEC is declining This mightbe caused by the continued land use land cover changescoupled with an increase in human population in the nearbyprotected areas surrounding the farmland of the Rombo areawhichmight suppress elephants coming out of their protectedareas by blocking their migratory routes Decreasing HECincidents might also be caused by a decreasing elephantpopulation in the KINAPA ecosystem Up to five decadesago elephants and other large mammals migrated betweenTWNP and KINAPA through Rombo and occurred in highnumbers in Rombo particularly in the southern part ofKilimanjaro and in the lowland areas bordering TWNP [17]Due to increasing habitat fragmentation encroachment andpoaching for ivory trade some studies reported a decliningelephant population in the KINAPA ecosystem For instancein the 1970s the population was about 1200 elephants [10]and decreased to about 750 in 2003 [38] and further to 450in 2010 [18] while an estimate of 2142 elephants was recentlyrecorded in TWNP [13] Due to the blockage of themigratoryroutes in recent decades elephants are coming from TWNPand raid crops in lowland areas of Rombo and go back toTWNP In upland areas elephants come out from KINAPAraid the crops planted inside the forest plantation and go backto KINAPA [16 37]

44 Human Population and Its Implication to ElephantConservation The historical distribution of elephants andlarge mammals in Rombo area has been linked to humansettlements which largely occurred between 1930 and 1965and reduced the elephant distribution range to fewmigratoryelephant groups that would enter KINAPA from TWNP inthe east [10 17] This means that migration by elephants andother mammals used to occur on a regular basis betweenKINAPA and TWNP in Kenya to the east but very littleevidence was found that this migration still existed in this

studyThe number of people in RomboDistrict has increasedby 30 over the past 25 years [14 37] and this is likely to haveincreased competitionwith wildlife Generally savannas withhigh human populations also have high livestock numbersfarming activities and settlement [22] More people can alsomean more hunting pressure and thus more wildlife deaths[22 34] However from an anthropocentric point of viewconflicts with wildlife decrease as human populations riseand shift to smaller less dangerous species simply becausethe larger species disappear [22 37] This might be true forRombo area where there has been a decline in elephantpopulation in KINAPA by approximately 43 between 2003and 2010 [6 38] In this area humans have been competingwith elephants by converting their habitat into farmlandwhere they grow perennial and seasonal crops such asbananas coffee and maize [16] Therefore to attain elephantconservation and livelihood development it is necessary toconsider human population growth and distributions as thekey factor and come up with alternative land use plans

5 Conclusion

Given that no ecological study has ever been conducted inRombo area this is a new ground evidence generated fromthe data It also becomes the new beginning of science-based evidence to policy makers on how they can balancethe trade-offs between elephant conservation and humandevelopment Our assessment of the nature and the extentof HEC and its impact on conservation efforts providesimportant information to conservationists that are to meetthe challenges related to biodiversity loss We showed thatHEC hotspots are located in areas adjacent to PAs andcoincided with seasonal crop maturity especially maize inthe lowlands Short-term management measures such as theintroduction of alternative crops which are not attractiveto elephants to reduce HEC should be prioritized in areasbordering the PAs Damage prevention should focus on theseasonal crop like maize maturity and harvesting monthsOur study also showed that HEC incidents were decliningover the last six years despite increasing human settlementsand agricultural activity Althoughwedonot knowhowmanypeople this area can support without strongly diminishingwildlife populations patterns of human populations shouldbe taken into account when planning for long-termHECmit-igationmeasures Buffer zonesmay also be established in suchareas where human and wildlife coexistence is likely to occurLocal peoplemay benefit from coexistence if themechanismsfor sharing the profits from wildlife tourism for example arein place Our study shows how various locally collected datain combination with socioecological assessments interviewsand long-term records can successfully be applied to helphighlighting HEC hotspots and predicting their spatial andtemporal occurrence

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this paper

8 Advances in Ecology

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr A L Massawe the Wildlife Officerof Rombo District for providing secondary data on elephantconflict incidences in Rombo District as well as the VillageExecutive Officers E J Mtei Mr G J Kauki C Gwandu andM Mwanyange for their support in the field They furtherthank S Terengia for support in spatial analysis and H AMsuya M Iddy and N E Msuya for assisting during datacollection This work was supported by the Government ofTanzania through the Commission for Science and Tech-nology (COSTECH) and the German Academic ExchangeService (DAAD) as part of a PhD scholarship

References

[1] S M Redpath J Young A Evely W M Adams W J Suther-land A Whitehouse et al ldquoUnderstanding and managing con-servation conflictsrdquo Trends in Ecology amp Evolution vol 28 pp100ndash109 2013

[2] R E Hoare and J T Du Toit ldquoCoexistence between people andelephants inAfrican savannasrdquoConservation Biology vol 13 no3 pp 633ndash639 1999

[3] N W Sitati M J Walpole R J Smith and N Leader-WilliamsldquoPredicting spatial aspects of human-elephant conflictrdquo Journalof Applied Ecology vol 40 no 4 pp 667ndash677 2003

[4] M Mutinda G Chenge F Gakuya et al ldquoDetusking fence-breaker elephants as an approach in human-elephant conflictmitigationrdquo PLoS ONE vol 9 no 3 Article ID e91749 2014

[5] M Y Said J O Ogutu S C Kifugo O Makui R S Reid andJ de Leeuw ldquoEffects of extreme land fragmentation on wildlifeand livestock population abundance and distributionrdquo Journalfor Nature Conservation Elsevier GmbH vol 34 pp 151ndash1642016

[6] S Mduma A Lobora C Foley and J Trevor ldquoTanzania ele-phant management planrdquo Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute2010

[7] WCS ldquoHumanElephant ConflictMitigation inTanzaniardquoWildlConserv Soc Tanzania Program 2009

[8] R E Hoare ldquoVertically integrated Human-Elephant conflictmanagement system in Tanzania background and next stepsrdquoHuman-Elephant Confl Rev Case Stud pp 1ndash12 2007

[9] R R Hoffmeier-Karimi and B A Schulte ldquoAssessing perceivedand documented crop damage in a Tanzanian village impactedby human-elephant conflict (HEC)rdquo Pachyderm vol 2015 pp51ndash60 2015

[10] T A Afolayan ldquoEffects of elephant activities on forest plan-tations in the kilimanjaro forest-game reserve in northernTanzaniardquo Oikos vol 26 pp 405ndash410 1975

[11] S Wasser J Poole P Lee et al ldquoElephants Ivory and TraderdquoScience (80-) vol 327 pp 1331-1332 2010

[12] Y Chen J Marino Y Chen Q Tao C D Sullivan K Shi et alldquoPredicting hotspots of human-elephant conflict to informmit-igation strategies in xishuangbanna southwest Chinardquo PLOSONE vol 11 Article ID e0162035 2016

[13] S Ngene S Njumbi M Nzisa K Kimitei J Mukeka S Muyaet al ldquoStatus and trends of the elephant population in theTsavomdashMkomazi ecosystemrdquo Pachyderm vol 53 pp 38ndash502013

[14] URT ldquoPopulation and housing census population distributionby administrative areasrdquo 2013

[15] R E Hoare ldquoDeterminants of human-elephant conflict in aland-use mosaicrdquo Journal of Applied Ecology vol 36 no 5 pp689ndash700 1999

[16] N E Mmbaga L K Munishi and A C Treydte ldquoow dynamicsand drivers of land useland cover change impact elephant con-servation and agricultural livelihood development in RomboTanzaniardquo J Land Use Sci Taylor amp Francis vol 12 pp 168ndash1812017

[17] GChild ldquoSomenotes onmammals ofKilimanjarordquoTanganyikaNotes and Records vol 64 pp 77ndash89 1965

[18] D G Mpanduji and K Ngomello ldquoElephant movements andhome range determinations using GPSARGOS satellites andGIS programme Implication to conservation in southernTanzaniardquo in Proceedings of the 6th TAWIRI Annual ScientificConference pp 1ndash15 2007 httpwwwselous-niassa-corridororgfileadminpublicationsSNWC elephant movementsand home range determinationspdf

[19] M D Graham I Douglas-Hamilton W M Adams and P CLee ldquoThe movement of African elephants in a human-domi-nated land-use mosaicrdquo Animal Conservation vol 12 no 5 pp445ndash455 2009

[20] A Changrsquoa N de Souza J Muya et al ldquoScaling-up the use ofchili fences for reducing human-elephant conflict across land-scapes in Tanzaniardquo Tropical Conservation Science vol 9 no 2pp 921ndash930 2016

[21] S Gubbi ldquoPatterns and correlates of human-elephant conflictaround a south Indian reserverdquoBiological Conservation vol 148no 1 pp 88ndash95 2012

[22] R S Reid Savannans of our birth People wildlife and change inEast Africa University of Califonia Press London UK 2012

[23] R Liu J Wang J Shi et al ldquoRunoff characteristics and nutrientloss mechanism from plain farmland under simulated rainfallconditionsrdquo Science of the Total Environment vol 468-469 pp1069ndash1077 2014

[24] J Metsio Sienne R Buchwald and G Wittemyer ldquoDiffer-entiation in mineral constituents in elephant selected versusunselected water and soil resources at Central African bais(forest clearings)rdquoEuropean Journal ofWildlife Research vol 60no 2 pp 377ndash382 2014

[25] G E Soka and M E Ritchie ldquoLand-Cover legacy effectson arbuscular mycorrhizal abundance in human and wildlifedominated systems in tropical savannardquo Advances in Ecologyvol 2016 10 pages 2016

[26] F KHarich A C Treydte J Sauerborn andEHOwusu ldquoPeo-ple and wildlife Conflicts arising around the Bia ConservationArea in Ghanardquo Journal for Nature Conservation vol 21 no 5pp 342ndash349 2013

[27] P Bal C D Nath K M Nanaya C G Kushalappa andC Garcia ldquoElephants also like coffee Trends and drivers ofhuman-elephant conflicts in coffee agroforestry landscapes ofKodagu Western Ghats Indiardquo Environmental Managementvol 47 no 5 pp 789ndash801 2011

[28] C Santiapillai S Wijeyamohan G Bandara R AthurupanaN Dissanayake and B Read ldquoAn assessment of the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lankardquo Ceylon Journal of Science(Biological Sciences) vol 39 pp 21ndash33 2010

[29] A Mwakatobe J Nyahongo J Ntalwila and E Roskaft ldquoTheimpact of crop raiding by wild animals in communities sur-rounding the Serengeti National Parkrdquo Int J Biodivers Conservvol 6 pp 637ndash646 2014

[30] R Hoare ldquoAfrican elephants and humans in conflict theoutlook for co-existencerdquo Oryx vol 34 pp 34ndash38 2000

8 Advances in Ecology

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr A L Massawe the Wildlife Officerof Rombo District for providing secondary data on elephantconflict incidences in Rombo District as well as the VillageExecutive Officers E J Mtei Mr G J Kauki C Gwandu andM Mwanyange for their support in the field They furtherthank S Terengia for support in spatial analysis and H AMsuya M Iddy and N E Msuya for assisting during datacollection This work was supported by the Government ofTanzania through the Commission for Science and Tech-nology (COSTECH) and the German Academic ExchangeService (DAAD) as part of a PhD scholarship

References

[1] S M Redpath J Young A Evely W M Adams W J Suther-land A Whitehouse et al ldquoUnderstanding and managing con-servation conflictsrdquo Trends in Ecology amp Evolution vol 28 pp100ndash109 2013

[2] R E Hoare and J T Du Toit ldquoCoexistence between people andelephants inAfrican savannasrdquoConservation Biology vol 13 no3 pp 633ndash639 1999

[3] N W Sitati M J Walpole R J Smith and N Leader-WilliamsldquoPredicting spatial aspects of human-elephant conflictrdquo Journalof Applied Ecology vol 40 no 4 pp 667ndash677 2003

[4] M Mutinda G Chenge F Gakuya et al ldquoDetusking fence-breaker elephants as an approach in human-elephant conflictmitigationrdquo PLoS ONE vol 9 no 3 Article ID e91749 2014

[5] M Y Said J O Ogutu S C Kifugo O Makui R S Reid andJ de Leeuw ldquoEffects of extreme land fragmentation on wildlifeand livestock population abundance and distributionrdquo Journalfor Nature Conservation Elsevier GmbH vol 34 pp 151ndash1642016

[6] S Mduma A Lobora C Foley and J Trevor ldquoTanzania ele-phant management planrdquo Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute2010

[7] WCS ldquoHumanElephant ConflictMitigation inTanzaniardquoWildlConserv Soc Tanzania Program 2009

[8] R E Hoare ldquoVertically integrated Human-Elephant conflictmanagement system in Tanzania background and next stepsrdquoHuman-Elephant Confl Rev Case Stud pp 1ndash12 2007

[9] R R Hoffmeier-Karimi and B A Schulte ldquoAssessing perceivedand documented crop damage in a Tanzanian village impactedby human-elephant conflict (HEC)rdquo Pachyderm vol 2015 pp51ndash60 2015

[10] T A Afolayan ldquoEffects of elephant activities on forest plan-tations in the kilimanjaro forest-game reserve in northernTanzaniardquo Oikos vol 26 pp 405ndash410 1975

[11] S Wasser J Poole P Lee et al ldquoElephants Ivory and TraderdquoScience (80-) vol 327 pp 1331-1332 2010

[12] Y Chen J Marino Y Chen Q Tao C D Sullivan K Shi et alldquoPredicting hotspots of human-elephant conflict to informmit-igation strategies in xishuangbanna southwest Chinardquo PLOSONE vol 11 Article ID e0162035 2016

[13] S Ngene S Njumbi M Nzisa K Kimitei J Mukeka S Muyaet al ldquoStatus and trends of the elephant population in theTsavomdashMkomazi ecosystemrdquo Pachyderm vol 53 pp 38ndash502013

[14] URT ldquoPopulation and housing census population distributionby administrative areasrdquo 2013

[15] R E Hoare ldquoDeterminants of human-elephant conflict in aland-use mosaicrdquo Journal of Applied Ecology vol 36 no 5 pp689ndash700 1999

[16] N E Mmbaga L K Munishi and A C Treydte ldquoow dynamicsand drivers of land useland cover change impact elephant con-servation and agricultural livelihood development in RomboTanzaniardquo J Land Use Sci Taylor amp Francis vol 12 pp 168ndash1812017

[17] GChild ldquoSomenotes onmammals ofKilimanjarordquoTanganyikaNotes and Records vol 64 pp 77ndash89 1965

[18] D G Mpanduji and K Ngomello ldquoElephant movements andhome range determinations using GPSARGOS satellites andGIS programme Implication to conservation in southernTanzaniardquo in Proceedings of the 6th TAWIRI Annual ScientificConference pp 1ndash15 2007 httpwwwselous-niassa-corridororgfileadminpublicationsSNWC elephant movementsand home range determinationspdf

[19] M D Graham I Douglas-Hamilton W M Adams and P CLee ldquoThe movement of African elephants in a human-domi-nated land-use mosaicrdquo Animal Conservation vol 12 no 5 pp445ndash455 2009

[20] A Changrsquoa N de Souza J Muya et al ldquoScaling-up the use ofchili fences for reducing human-elephant conflict across land-scapes in Tanzaniardquo Tropical Conservation Science vol 9 no 2pp 921ndash930 2016

[21] S Gubbi ldquoPatterns and correlates of human-elephant conflictaround a south Indian reserverdquoBiological Conservation vol 148no 1 pp 88ndash95 2012

[22] R S Reid Savannans of our birth People wildlife and change inEast Africa University of Califonia Press London UK 2012

[23] R Liu J Wang J Shi et al ldquoRunoff characteristics and nutrientloss mechanism from plain farmland under simulated rainfallconditionsrdquo Science of the Total Environment vol 468-469 pp1069ndash1077 2014

[24] J Metsio Sienne R Buchwald and G Wittemyer ldquoDiffer-entiation in mineral constituents in elephant selected versusunselected water and soil resources at Central African bais(forest clearings)rdquoEuropean Journal ofWildlife Research vol 60no 2 pp 377ndash382 2014

[25] G E Soka and M E Ritchie ldquoLand-Cover legacy effectson arbuscular mycorrhizal abundance in human and wildlifedominated systems in tropical savannardquo Advances in Ecologyvol 2016 10 pages 2016

[26] F KHarich A C Treydte J Sauerborn andEHOwusu ldquoPeo-ple and wildlife Conflicts arising around the Bia ConservationArea in Ghanardquo Journal for Nature Conservation vol 21 no 5pp 342ndash349 2013

[27] P Bal C D Nath K M Nanaya C G Kushalappa andC Garcia ldquoElephants also like coffee Trends and drivers ofhuman-elephant conflicts in coffee agroforestry landscapes ofKodagu Western Ghats Indiardquo Environmental Managementvol 47 no 5 pp 789ndash801 2011

[28] C Santiapillai S Wijeyamohan G Bandara R AthurupanaN Dissanayake and B Read ldquoAn assessment of the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lankardquo Ceylon Journal of Science(Biological Sciences) vol 39 pp 21ndash33 2010

[29] A Mwakatobe J Nyahongo J Ntalwila and E Roskaft ldquoTheimpact of crop raiding by wild animals in communities sur-rounding the Serengeti National Parkrdquo Int J Biodivers Conservvol 6 pp 637ndash646 2014

[30] R Hoare ldquoAfrican elephants and humans in conflict theoutlook for co-existencerdquo Oryx vol 34 pp 34ndash38 2000

Advances in Ecology 9

[31] A Mwakalobo A Kaswamila and A Kira ldquoTourism RegionalMultiplier Effects in Tanzania analysis of Singita GrumetiReserves Tourism in the Mara Regionrdquo Journal of SustainableDevelopment 2016 httpwwwccsenetorgjournalindexphpjsdarticleview50640

[32] A J Sitienei G Jiwen and S M Ngene ldquoAssessing the costof living with elephants (Loxodonta africana) in areas adjacentto Meru National Park Kenyardquo European Journal of WildlifeResearch vol 60 no 2 pp 323ndash330 2014

[33] M N Tehamba ldquoHistory and present status of the humanelephant conflict in theWaza-Logone Region Cameroon WestAfricardquo Biological Conservation vol 75 no 1 pp 35ndash41 1996

[34] G Wittemyer P Elsen W T Bean A C O Burton and J SBrashares ldquoAccelerated human population growth at protectedarea edgesrdquo Science vol 321 no 5885 pp 123ndash126 2008

[35] E Danquah ldquoSpatial Distribution of Elephants versus Humanand Ecological Variables in Western Ghanardquo Advances inEcology vol 2016 pp 1ndash8 2016

[36] J J Blanc R FW Barnes G C Craig H T Dublin C RThou-less I Douglas-Hamilton et al ldquoAfrican elephant status report2007 an update from the African elephant database [Internet]rdquoIUCN Species Survival Commission 2007

[37] N E Mmbaga L K Munishi and A C Treydte ldquoHumanpopulation growth as indicator for human-elephant conflicts inRombo area Tanzaniardquo J Biodivers Environ Sci vol 10 pp 94ndash102 2017

[38] L K Munishi and S L S Maganga ldquoThe status of the africanelephants in mount kilimanjaro ecosystem and its managementimplicationrdquo African Elephant Specialist Group 2003 NairobiKenya IUCNSSC

Submit your manuscripts athttpswwwhindawicom

Forestry ResearchInternational Journal of

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

Environmental and Public Health

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Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

EcosystemsJournal of

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MeteorologyAdvances in

EcologyInternational Journal of

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Advances in

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

Environmental Chemistry

Atmospheric SciencesInternational Journal of

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

Waste ManagementJournal of

Hindawi Publishing Corporation httpwwwhindawicom Volume 201

International Journal of

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

Geological ResearchJournal of

EarthquakesJournal of

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

BiodiversityInternational Journal of

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

ScientificaHindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

OceanographyInternational Journal of

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

The Scientific World JournalHindawi Publishing Corporation httpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

Journal of Computational Environmental SciencesHindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

Hindawi Publishing Corporationhttpwwwhindawicom Volume 2014

ClimatologyJournal of