262 W. Mbamy et al. Where people and elephants coexist, human activity can
influence elephant behaviour in several ways. For example, elephants in locations with high human disturbance levels move in larger groups, move faster, show increased noctur- nal activity (Graham et al., 2009; Songhurst et al., 2016) and approach villages for forage (Cook et al., 2015). Damage caused by elephants is of particular conservation interest be- cause where it occurs it is often both frequent and severe (Osborn & Parker, 2003; Prins et al., 2022). In the villages of south-west Gabon, for example, encroachment into vil- lages and crop damage by elephants have remained the major drivers of negative human–wildlife interactions over the last decade and are amongst the main causes of the im- poverishment of local people (Fairet, 2012;Hill, 2017; Terada et al., 2021). This situation is reported in public dialogue across rural Gabon, although studies on the exact extent of the damage from crop-foraging elephants and how to identify the individual elephants that engage in it are rare. An important factor to consider when studying human–
elephant interactions is how local people perceive forest elephants and the issues related to them (Tutin et al., 1997; Walker, 2010, 2012; Ngama et al., 2016; Prins et al., 2022). Perceptions represent a form of evidence that deserves a central place in monitoring, evaluating and adapting conservation programmes and policies (Bennett, 2016). Qualitative and quantitative studies based on perceptions are effective, holistic and better suited to certain questions; in particular, knowledge of the perceptions of people re- garding human–elephant conflict through local assess- ments can facilitate understanding of the social impacts of conservation (Bennett, 2016). Here we use GPS tracking data to characterize spatio-
temporal patterns in elephant village visitations, and we use surveys to determine local perceptions of crop seasonal- ity and human–elephant interactions. We integrate data on elephant movements and perception of local farmers to explore the potential drivers of negative human–elephant interactions around villages. We hypothesize that elephants
approach villages more closely and frequently when crop availability is high and that peaks in elephant visitation should coincide with local perceptions of when negative in- teractions occur. We further hypothesize that local farmers would perceive that food availability in plantations, logging and conservation policies are the key drivers of negative human–elephant interactions.
Study area
We conducted this study in the area bordering the north of Ivindo National Park near the town of Makokou in the Ogooué-Ivindo Province of north-eastern Gabon (Fig. 1). The area exhibits bimodal seasonality, with two dry sea- sons (December–February and June–August) and two wet seasons (September–November and March–May). Mean annual precipitation is c. 1,700 mm and mean annual temperature is 23.9 °C (Beirne et al., 2019). Ivindo National Park is one of 13 national parks established in Gabon in 2002, and in 2021 it became the second park in Gabon to be recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The vil- lages in the region are known to experience strong human– elephant conflict, and this figures prominently in rural and urban conversations broadcast in the national media.
Methods
Satellite collar data In October 2015, the National Park Authority of Gabon in- itiated a forest elephant collaring programme across Gabon (Mills et al., 2018; Beirne et al., 2020). Two of the 98 ele- phants collared thus far have approached village plantations north of Ivindo National Park: Amelia, a female with two juveniles during the time of study, and a male named Nzamba (Fig. 1). We processed the GPS collar data of these two elephants, which recorded their location once
FIG. 1 Home ranges of the two collared study elephants Loxodonta cyclotis, Amelia (female) and Nzamba (male), near the town of Makokou and the locations of the seven study villages north of Ivindo National Park, Gabon. The larger polygons with light shading represent 100% minimum convex polygons and the smaller polygons with dark shading represent 50% kernel density estimates of all geographical locations recorded by the collars. Neither elephant appeared to venture south of the Ivindo river. (Readers of the printed journal are referred to the online article for a colour version of this figure.)
Oryx, 2024, 58(2), 261–268 © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323000704
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