Human Wildlife Conflict Between Elephants and Villagers
Uganda, Africa.

We rely on farming and the crops our community grows to sustain us. Unfortunately, elephants also seem to enjoy eating these crops and invade local farms, damaging the crops and the surrounding growth and drastically limiting the food supply our community depends on. The community feels the impact of the food loss and some are becoming increasingly angered by the elephant crop raiding. They are becoming shortsighted and want to eliminate the elephants from the surrounding area. However, many of us in the community realize elephants are part of the beauty of the area we have grown up in surrounding Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda. We understand they are part of our community, they sustain our forests and they are a vital resource for the land and ecology. We believe if one species is removed, we all perish eventually. We want to live in harmony and richness together.

What we are doing now:

We have organized members of the community who want to prevent the crop trampling into squads of rangers to patrol the fields at night to report elephant sightings and deter them from the area when they are approaching. We are a band of people who are farmers. Men and women, who have committed to monitoring the lands every evening to save our food and our elephants. We are local and we are volunteers and members of the Zendeire wildlife club, but we are small and the time commitment and our size is weighing on our ability to have effect consistently.

What we want to do:

We want to put up beehives to keep the elephants away from the crops, which will also provide an alternative food source and income for our community.

We think this is a way to keep the crops and the elephants safe and to keep the community as a whole in a sustainable level of existence. We have a person, Kasimali Francis, who will be the beekeeper and we are working with Tumesigye Auther to understand better wildlife activities and how we can manage our local situation so that wildlife and villagers can live harmoniously.