Human-Elephant Conflict Around Mount Cameroon National Park

Global Hand Cameroon has recently been working in partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Programme for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (PSMNR-SWR) to develop a new “Rapid Response Team” strategy for preventing human-elephant conflicts in communities adjacent to Mount Cameroon National Park.

Over the past few years, the problem of forest elephants raiding farmers crops has been getting steadily worse, and especially in the West Coast and Bomboko Clusters (northern and western border of the national park). Not only have the number of raids by elephants increased, but the elephants are now remaining in the area. Farmers are losing entire crops, and human-elephant encounters are becoming dangerous. The situation in this area has reached a crisis stage and workable solutions are urgently needed.

According to stories passed down by village elders, elephants have always used this area as a corridor to move between places (e.g., to the Mukoko Forest Reserve and back to Korup and Takamanda National Parks) and until recently there rarely were any problems. However, with the traditional elephant corridors being encroached upon by human settlement, along with disruptions caused by ongoing political instability, the elephants’ traditional patterns of movement have been altered. Of course, forest elephants are recognized as an essential part of the area’s rich biodiversity — and are in fact a big draw for ecotourists — so the question is not how to completely eliminate them, but simply how to dissuade them from entering farms and populated areas.

A number of creative techniques to dissuade the elephants have been tried, including building hot chili fences and installing beehives along some parts of the boundary separating the national park from the affected communities. Unfortunately, these measures have only provided a temporary solution since the elephants have simply adapted to these installations and continued with their unwelcome activities.

Undeterred, villagers have resorted to a more active approach to chasing off the elephants. Now, the national park is encouraging communities to respond to the elephants’ destruction through an “early warning alert system” using a Rapid Response Team (RRT), in which elephants are monitored and immediately chased from community farms as soon as they are first detected.

It is in this endeavor that Global Hand Cameroon has been actively working. In its capacity as a Local Support Organization (LSO), GLOHA, in partnership with WWF and PSMNR-SWR, is helping train villagers and farmers on the best RRT strategies, including how to use the vuvuzela (horn), GPS, and other monitoring gadgetry. This is just one of the many conservation issues we are addressing as we seek to find long-term, sustainable solutions to improve people’s livelihoods and maintain the overall health of the planet.

[See also our news article of June 2023:  Human-Elephant Conflict, Mount Cameroon]

Video of two elephants in a farmer’s field. The farmer is calling to the elephants to leave the field.