Drivers of human-elephant conflicts and their management implications: a case study of Rombo, Kilimanjaro Region in Tanzania

Human-wildlife interaction has existed over centuries and wildlife has long been important for the human survival and culture development. While larger wild African mammals were exploited as resources (e.g. ivory, hunting) rather than major threats this trend has changed with increasing protection status of these animals and their habitat.With this project we wanted to assess the influence of land use changes, climatic and demographic drivers on human elephant conflicts in Rombo area in the Kilimanjaro National Park (KINAPA) ecosystem. We further aim at understanding the nature and extent of HEC in Rombo area and locate HEC conflict hotspots and at investigatingspatio-temporal patterns of land use and cover over the past three distinctive time scale in Rombo, Tanzania. This information will help to assess the major food crop types and their performance in relation to variations across altitudinal, climatic (i.e., rainfall, temperature) and HEC gradientsalong the Kilimanjaro. We further collect information on human demographic factors that might influence HEC in Rombo. Hence, our study will provide fine-scale information on elephant movement patterns over time with respect to various environmental and demographic factors. This information will help managers to predict conflict hotspots, to prevent incidents and to address conflicts more efficiently once they occur.