Understanding human–elephant conflict

Prithiviraj Fernando, MS ’93, PhD ’98 (biology), and Herve Memiaghe, a landscape architecture PhD student, use research to save elephant populations in Sri Lanka and Gabon, Africa.

Fernando, who grew up in Sri Lanka, says he often visited the zoo with his parents, and when he was a teenager, ventured out into the local wildlife on hikes with his friends. “I was interested in animals, not just elephants, but basically animals, birds, everything from my very young days.”

Almost 5,000 miles away on the other side of the world, Memiaghe, who was born and raised in Libreville, Gabon , spent his childhood in places surrounded by forest where each activity—planting, hunting, and fishing—is driven by the movement of the sun.

Today, Fernando and Memiaghe are still on two different continents, and at different points in their careers. Fernando has been working in elephant conservation for more than three decades, and Memiaghe is completing his doctoral program at the UO, but they are both fighting to save elephants and create an environment where humans and world’s largest land mammal can coexist

Fernando has spent nearly 30 years studying elephant conservation and is a worldwide expert on the topic. Ironically, when he arrived at the University of Oregon to study biology, he says that he was more interested in birds and frogs than elephants.

However, all of that changed while he was working on his thesis in Sri Lanka. Fernando's research began to shift to elephants after he and a team of researchers began radio tracking a young male called Carver that was outside of Yala National Park.

“We followed this animal and his herd for many years and Carver was probably about six or seven years old,” Fernando recalls. “We could identify him and relate to him, but then there were some human-elephant conflict incidents and two people got killed outside the park. And as a result, the elephants were driven into the park and fenced in with electric fences.”

Six months later, Fernando and the others heard that there was a young elephant that was stuck in the mud in one of the lakes in the park. It was Carver. They were horrified that he was skin and bones. His condition had deteriorated, and he was too weak to extricate himself from the mud. The wildlife department officials managed to pull him out and attempted to feed him for three days.

“We fed him all kinds of vegetables, just like we used to when he was in the herd—he would take it from our hand and eat. But, unfortunately, after three days he died" Fernando says. "This left a very strong and lasting impression on me, and I discovered that the conservation of elephants is very complex. If we applied and looked at the biological aspects of all these things, then we could really understand the issues. It showed me how important it was to do this kind of research and then relate the research findings to conservation and management.”

Memiaghe has worked on biodiversity surveys in Gabon for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI), Shell Gabon, and the Government of Gabon. Prior to studying landscape architecture at the UO, he also worked with the Institute for Research in Tropical Ecology.

His research explores the dynamics of the Central African tropical forest and aims to integrate cultural heritage, development pressure, and conservation. Like Fernando, he didn’t become interested in elephants until he came to the UO in 2016.

"When I started the program, we went to Gabon to discuss issues at Yala National Park with stakeholders from the local conservation community. And it was during that time that people told me that there was a big issue with the human–elephant conflict.”

Because of his background in ecology and his focus on forest dynamics, Memiaghe spent time in the field—literally on his stomach—conducting research. He says that there was always one or a group of elephants close to his group while they canvassed the area.

“Gabon might be the last refuge of this endangered large mammal, but there is an urgent need to provide approaches to reduce crop depredation.”

Those first interactions with elephants helped him define the scope of work he would tackle in his doctoral program.

“I am examining the relationship between the availability of native fruit variation consumed by forest elephants and their local crop consumption at Lope National Park in Gabon,” Memiaghe says. “This examination guides the design of innovative approaches of land management integrating local farms’ and elephants’ needs to create conditions for their coexistence.”

During his research, Memiaghe has engaged villagers, park employees, conservationists, and researchers to draw upon their knowledge. In particular, he has been looking at how crop destruction can threaten forest elephant conservation efforts. He notes that the loss of crops is problematic because crops are the primary source of food for local communities.

“The angry local farmers can threaten this elephant species by supporting poachers,” says Memiaghe. “Illegal poaching has been reported as the cause of forest elephants’ population decline in Central Africa countries like Gabon. Gabon might be the last refuge of this endangered large mammal, but there is an urgent need to provide approaches to reduce crop depredation.”

Memiaghe points out that there is a lack of investigations examining the integration of crops in forest elephants foraging. To that end, his research investigates the spatial and seasonal patterns of forest elephant foraging in a mosaic landscape to understand the integration of crops in their diet.

He hopes that the results of his investigation of forest elephants foraging will provide insight into understanding the integration of crops in the elephant diet and guide the design of land management integrating elephants’ needs. Ultimately, he sees that this type of integration of elephants’ needs could create conditions for farming and elephant conservation coexistence.

“In many parts of Africa, elephant crop depredation threatens both villagers’ farming and elephant conservation efforts,” says Memiaghe. “Crop loss can be devastating to villagers because local crops are their primary food and income sources. In the long run, the continued conflict could lead to a further rural exodus. At the same time, villagers cannot hunt elephants because some African countries, like Gabon, fully protect the remaining elephant populations. These complex circumstances require multiple forms of knowledge and a variety of perspectives to investigate the conditions that could support human–elephant coexistence.”