Human-wildlife conflict and the likelihood of reporting losses in Nepal

Abstract

All development indices are changing due to increased exploitation of nature and growing economies in developing countries. This situation may increase the intensity of conflict between humans and wild species, such as large carnivores. Despite the increasing intensity of human-wildlife conflicts and the existing compensation scheme that compensates for the loss, most losses to human-wildlife conflicts are not reported to authorities. Thus, this study was conducted in the Banke National Park of Nepal to explore possible factors influencing the propensity to report losses. All 197 surveyed participants reported suffering from crop raids by wild animals, and 80 respondents (40.60 %) reported livestock depredation. Results revealed that socio-economic factors, such as age (β = 1.99, SE = 1.61), gender (β = -0.56, SE = 0.28), employment (β = -1.10, SE = 0.68), family size (β = 1.54, SE = 0.54), and conflict with certain species including Bengal tiger (β = 0.48, SE 0.24), leopard (β = 0.92, SE 0.35), elephant (β = 0.58, SE 0.34), and monkey (β = 0.56, SE 0.27), were statistically significant at p values ≤ 0.01, ≤ 0.05, and ≤ 0.10, in influencing the likelihood of reporting a loss. Except for gender and employment, all other factors positively influenced the likelihood of reporting a loss. These findings could be considered while formulating/executing policy guidelines for compensation or any policy related to protected areas to improve reporting rates. This study can also initiate future studies in other protected or forested areas globally.