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Attitudes and Perceptions of the Local People on Human–Elephant Conflict in the Patharia Hills Reserve Forest of Assam, India

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Abstract

Wildlife conservation is important to maintain ecosystem balance, and its success relies largely on the involvement of local communities. The study focused on understanding the socio-economic profile of the local people, and their attitudes and perception towards the conflict causing Asiatic elephant Elephas maximus in the Patharia Hills Reserve Forest, North East India. Close-ended questionnaires were used to collect information from the local communities. A total of 300 respondents within a 2 km radius were sampled in three distance categories, and the relative frequency was calculated. The results indicate that people’s attitudes were not supportive of elephant conservation and they were scared of the negative effects of conservation. The respondents who lived far from the forest were more interested in elephant conservation whereas respondents living in close proximity to the forest were against elephant conservation (χ2 = 108.8, df = 8, p < 0.001). People who had experienced Human–Elephant Conflict in real life were significantly more negative on elephant conservation than those had no experience of conflict (χ2 = 56.33, df = 8, p < 0.001). Occupation also had a crucial role in the attitude building process to conserve conflict causing elephants. People in forest related occupation were against conservation and others who were unrelated to the forest were supporting conservation (χ2 = 39.04, df = 8, p < 0.01). As a whole, three significant factors, i.e., distance from the forest, conflict with the elephant, and occupation had key roles in building people’s attitudes. Negative attitudes and perceptions should essentially be utilized while implementing conservation programs.

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Acknowledgements

We are thankful to the entire professional in Karimganj forest division, Assam for providing secondary data and allowing to access the Patharia Hills Reserve Forest. We thank all the reviewers for their valuable suggestions to improve the manuscript. We are also thankful to the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Assam University, Silchar and Centre for Biodiversity and Climate Change Research, Udhayan, Hailakandi for providing adequate facilities to carry out the research. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions to improve the manuscript.

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The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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  1. Wildlife Conservation Research Centre, Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Assam University, Silchar, 788011, India

    Nazimur Rahman Talukdar & Parthankar Choudhury

  2. Centre for Biodiversity and Climate Change Research, Udhayan, Hailakandi, 788155, India

    Nazimur Rahman Talukdar

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  1. Nazimur Rahman Talukdar
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NRT and PC contributed to the overall design of the study as well as conception of the idea. NRT contributed to the field survey, data analysis and drafting the manuscript while Parthankar Choudhury finally approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Parthankar Choudhury.

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The datasets in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Ethical Committee, Assam University, Silchar (IEC/AUS/NAZIMUR/2018/06).

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Talukdar, N.R., Choudhury, P. Attitudes and Perceptions of the Local People on Human–Elephant Conflict in the Patharia Hills Reserve Forest of Assam, India. Proc Zool Soc 73, 380–391 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12595-020-00343-5

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