Journal of Biodiversity & Endangered Species

Community Based Conflict Mitigation Trials: Results of Field Tests of Chilli as an Elephant Deterrent

Abstract

Malvern Karidozo and Ferrel V. Osborn

Mitigating human elephant conflict remains a major conservation and livelihood challenge across the elephant (Loxodonta africana) range states. Chilli-based methods for deterring elephants from raiding fields are being used by subsistence farmers in Southern Africa, but there is concern that these methods may not be effective, are too expensive and labour intensive to implement and that there is poor uptake by farmers. As part of an ongoing study examining these issues, we present our assessment of the effectiveness of chilli as a component of Community Based Conflict Mitigation in deterring elephants from raiding crops in Southern Zambia. Chilli-based deterrent methods namely the chilli fence and chilli briquettes were evaluated in protecting maize (Zea mays) crops. We monitored conflict incidences in the chilli fence protected plots and those in unprotected (control/reference) plots and those protected by a simple fence. We also monitored human-elephant conflict incidences in the plots protected by chilli briquettes against those in the control plots in order to assess the effectiveness of the mitigation measures. A total of 46 Human Elephant Conflict incidences were recorded across the study site between January and April 2009, with the highest incidences recorded in the month of February. We compared the number of plants destroyed by elephants and the number of attempted raids in both the test and control plots. In all the trials we noted that chillibased methods repelled elephants and provided protection for the crops as they experienced significantly less damage. We argue that chilli based deterrents assessed in these trials are effective in repelling elephants and do add deterrent value in mitigating human elephant conflict.