The Study of Human - Elephant Conflict Alleviation: a Case Study of Tumbon Wangdong, Amphoe Muang, Kanchanaburi

Abstract

The objective of this research is to study the development and cause of the conflict between human and wild
elephants at Tumbon Wangdong, Amphoe Muang, Kanchanaburi, and analyze the potential of the
community and relevant stockholders in solving the problem according to Adaptive Management. The
result of the study shows that the socio-economic development in the past was the major factor inducing
human settlement in the elephants’ habitat. Nevertheless, at present there are 2 reasons, human intrusion in
and around the forest. The factor encouraging wild elephants to come out of the forest is human activities.
The factors attracting the animals to agriculture areas are water supplies and food resources. Meanwhile
three factors causing human intrusion into the animals’ habitat are 1) the socio-economic development of
the community 2) the current management of wild elephants, and 3) social factor which is relevant to social
structure and the way of living of the local people. The first period of solving the conflict between human
and elephants is following folk wisdom. The second step is taken by using past experiences to develop the
prevention in order not to let the animals invade agriculture areas. The third step is learning from their own
experiences as well as academic research in order to set direction and solution to deal with the conflict
problem. The result of stakeholders’ potential analysis shows that community and relevant organization
follow adaptive management in solving human-elephant conflict in the area but still lack of vision in
analyzing the whole system to solve the conflict in the long run together.