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Trenches reduce crop foraging by elephants: Lessons from Kibale National Park, Uganda for elephant conservation in densely settled rural landscapes

Crop loss to wildlife, particularly elephants, threatens livelihoods and support for conservation around many protected areas in Africa and Asia. Low-cost elephant barriers have been successfully deployed in savannas but seldom tested around isolated forest parks where the stakes are high for local...

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Autores principales: Rogers, Allison, Treves, Adrian, Karamagi, Richard, Nyakoojo, Moses, Naughton-Treves, Lisa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10370685/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37494325
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288115
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author Rogers, Allison
Treves, Adrian
Karamagi, Richard
Nyakoojo, Moses
Naughton-Treves, Lisa
author_facet Rogers, Allison
Treves, Adrian
Karamagi, Richard
Nyakoojo, Moses
Naughton-Treves, Lisa
author_sort Rogers, Allison
collection PubMed
description Crop loss to wildlife, particularly elephants, threatens livelihoods and support for conservation around many protected areas in Africa and Asia. Low-cost elephant barriers have been successfully deployed in savannas but seldom tested around isolated forest parks where the stakes are high for local farmers and isolated elephant populations. We measured the effectiveness of a series of ≥3 m deep trenches dug by farmers neighboring Kibale National Park, Uganda. We monitored trench quality and crop loss to elephants weekly for a year across 47 transects in four park-adjacent communities, and conducted controlled, before-and-after comparisons of verified damage. Elephants damaged or destroyed >4 ha of crops during 48 independent foraging events, the majority <220m from the forest boundary. The frequency of damage varied significantly between and within communities. The majority of trenches were not breached by elephants but five suffered ≥4 breaches. Elephant-breached trenches and their neighboring trenches were lower quality than those not breached in the same week (Wilcoxon test: p<0.001). Trenches were also more likely to be breached where people had planted more crops favored by elephants (Wilcoxon test: p = 0.014). Thus, trench quality and the draw of palatable crops both appeared to influence elephant damage. Although trenches may deter elephants, challenges include heavy labor and difficulties of digging in rocky and swampy areas. Trenches alone will not prevent conflict but this strategy holds promise for hot-spots of conflict at forest edges. Given the stakes for farmers and biodiversity, we call for systematic assessment of crop losses and offer recommendations on monitoring and analysis. Such data will allow for stronger inference about effectiveness before investment of effort and resources in interventions.
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spelling pubmed-103706852023-07-27 Trenches reduce crop foraging by elephants: Lessons from Kibale National Park, Uganda for elephant conservation in densely settled rural landscapes Rogers, Allison Treves, Adrian Karamagi, Richard Nyakoojo, Moses Naughton-Treves, Lisa PLoS One Research Article Crop loss to wildlife, particularly elephants, threatens livelihoods and support for conservation around many protected areas in Africa and Asia. Low-cost elephant barriers have been successfully deployed in savannas but seldom tested around isolated forest parks where the stakes are high for local farmers and isolated elephant populations. We measured the effectiveness of a series of ≥3 m deep trenches dug by farmers neighboring Kibale National Park, Uganda. We monitored trench quality and crop loss to elephants weekly for a year across 47 transects in four park-adjacent communities, and conducted controlled, before-and-after comparisons of verified damage. Elephants damaged or destroyed >4 ha of crops during 48 independent foraging events, the majority <220m from the forest boundary. The frequency of damage varied significantly between and within communities. The majority of trenches were not breached by elephants but five suffered ≥4 breaches. Elephant-breached trenches and their neighboring trenches were lower quality than those not breached in the same week (Wilcoxon test: p<0.001). Trenches were also more likely to be breached where people had planted more crops favored by elephants (Wilcoxon test: p = 0.014). Thus, trench quality and the draw of palatable crops both appeared to influence elephant damage. Although trenches may deter elephants, challenges include heavy labor and difficulties of digging in rocky and swampy areas. Trenches alone will not prevent conflict but this strategy holds promise for hot-spots of conflict at forest edges. Given the stakes for farmers and biodiversity, we call for systematic assessment of crop losses and offer recommendations on monitoring and analysis. Such data will allow for stronger inference about effectiveness before investment of effort and resources in interventions. Public Library of Science 2023-07-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10370685/ /pubmed/37494325 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288115 Text en © 2023 Rogers et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rogers, Allison
Treves, Adrian
Karamagi, Richard
Nyakoojo, Moses
Naughton-Treves, Lisa
Trenches reduce crop foraging by elephants: Lessons from Kibale National Park, Uganda for elephant conservation in densely settled rural landscapes
title Trenches reduce crop foraging by elephants: Lessons from Kibale National Park, Uganda for elephant conservation in densely settled rural landscapes
title_full Trenches reduce crop foraging by elephants: Lessons from Kibale National Park, Uganda for elephant conservation in densely settled rural landscapes
title_fullStr Trenches reduce crop foraging by elephants: Lessons from Kibale National Park, Uganda for elephant conservation in densely settled rural landscapes
title_full_unstemmed Trenches reduce crop foraging by elephants: Lessons from Kibale National Park, Uganda for elephant conservation in densely settled rural landscapes
title_short Trenches reduce crop foraging by elephants: Lessons from Kibale National Park, Uganda for elephant conservation in densely settled rural landscapes
title_sort trenches reduce crop foraging by elephants: lessons from kibale national park, uganda for elephant conservation in densely settled rural landscapes
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10370685/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37494325
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288115
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