Due to the fact that villages run along the edges of the national park, wild animals will often cross the boundaries and stray onto land from local communities. They can disturb the livestock and cause an immense amount of damage to crops that take a lot of time and effort to cultivate. This can understandably cause conflict between humans and wildlife, especially when most of the region relies on subsistence farming in order to survive.
For example, elephants sometimes leave the park and inflict significant damage to both crops and property. Troops of baboons can take the harvest of beans after farmers hard work, which results in hunger and poverty for the community and higher wildlife crime rate.
This initiative educates people on natural repellents in order to try and protect crops, but also focusses on the importance of the animals to the area and why it is crucial to learn how to live in harmony. It also looks at how to utilise items that are less likely to be plundered such as chilli peppers and beehives. Furthermore, we are trying to set up a guard service, where we can obtain two guards that scare the elephants away with lights and loud noises if they come too close. Currently the method used to scare the elephants away is firing shots into the air which is both dangerous and concerning.
