Human-wildlife coexistence: the nature, causes, and mitigations of human-wildlife conflict in and around Southeast Ethiopia's Bale Mountains

According to an article from Assignment Writing Services UK Conflict between humans and wildlife occurs when the needs and behaviours of wildlife have an adverse effect on humans or when humans have an adverse effect on the needs of wildlife. To better understand the nature, causes, and mitigations of human-wildlife conflict, an assessment of coexistence between humans and wildlife around Bale Mountains National Park was conducted. Household questionnaires, focus group discussions, interviews, field observations, and secondary sources were used to collect data. The nature and extent of human-wildlife conflict in the study area had a profound effect on humans, wild animals, and the environment via crop damage, habitat disturbance and destruction, livestock predation, and human-wildlife conflict. The major causes of conflict were agricultural expansion (30%), human settlement (24%), livestock overgrazing (14%), deforestation (18%), illegal grass collection (10%), and poaching (4 % ). Crop guarding (34%), live fencing (26%), scarecrow (22%), chasing (14%), and smoking have all been used by farmers to defend against crop raiders (5 % ). However, fencing (38%), chasing (30%), scarecrow (24%), and guarding (8%) were all used to defend livestock from predator animals. As this study emphasises, human-wildlife conflicts have negative consequences for both humans and wildlife. Accordingly, possible mitigation measures for peaceful coexistence between humans and wildlife include increasing community awareness and training, clearly delineating the closure area from resident-owned land, formulating rules and regulations for performed local communities, equitable benefit sharing for performed local communities, and reducing human settlement encroachment into the national park range. In general, the researcher recommended that stakeholders and concerned bodies educate local residents about the benefits of wildlife and human-wildlife conflict mitigation strategies.