Abstract:
Objectives The Asian Elephant National Park is a crucial area for Asian elephant conservation and human-elephant conflict mitigation in China. Exploring effective measures to alleviate human-elephant conflict is an important task of the Asian Elephant National Park, which is essential for safeguarding the lives and property of local residents and promoting harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.
Methods Based on the analysis of the current status of human-elephant conflict in the research area, combined with the actual situation of the Asian Elephant National Park, effective strategies to mitigate human-elephant conflicts are proposed.
Results Practical experience showed: (1) Habitat restoration can enhance connectivity between patches of high-suitability habitats, expanding suitable habitat areas and improving their integrity. (2) Planned burning can effectively increase the food sources for Asian elephants, thereby reducing the frequency of elephants venturing outside forests to feed on crops. (3) The establishment of a sound monitoring and early warning system for Asian elephants was an effective measure to ensure the safety of local residents' lives and property, and should be further developed. (4) Local residents affected could receive some compensation through public liability insurance for incidents involving wildlife.However, the public liability insurance mechanism for Asian elephants required further improvement. (5) Compensation for damages caused by Asian elephants falls short of the psychological expectations of local residents, necessitating the implementation of people-oriented policies to encourage local residents to actively protect Asian elephants.
Conclusions Through the construction of the Asian Elephant National Park, systematically advancing habitat restoration, planned burning, monitoring and early warning system, public liability insurance for wildlife, and increasing policy support, establishing an Asian elephant national park that harmonizes human-elephant relations, ecological protection and sustainable development. This can serve as a reference for the construction of national parks with flagship species as the main conservation targets.