Association between people’s attitudes towards human-elephant conflict and their locational, demographic, and socio-economic characteristics in Buxa Tiger Reserve and its adjoining area, India

doi:10.1016/j.regsus.2024.03.003

Abstract

Abstract:

“Human-elephant conflict (HEC)”, the alarming issue, in present day context has attracted the attention of environmentalists and policy makers. The rising conflict between human beings and wild elephants is common in Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR) and its adjoining area in West Bengal State, India, making the area volatile. People’s attitudes towards elephant conservation activity are very crucial to get rid of HEC, because people’s proximity with wild elephants’ habitat can trigger the occurrence of HEC. The aim of this study is to conduct an in-depth investigation about the association of people’s attitudes towards HEC with their locational, demographic, and socio-economic characteristics in BTR and its adjoining area by using Pearson’s bivariate chi-square test and binary logistic regression analysis. BTR is one of the constituent parts of Eastern Doors Elephant Reserve (EDER). We interviewed 500 respondents to understand their perceptions to HEC and investigated their locational, demographic, and socio-economic characteristics including location of village, gender, age, ethnicity, religion, caste, poverty level, education level, primary occupation, secondary occupation, household type, and source of firewood. The results indicate that respondents who are living in enclave forest villages (EFVs), peripheral forest villages (PFVs), corridor village (CVs), or forest and corridor villages (FCVs), mainly males, at the age of 18-48 years old, engaged with agriculture occupation, and living in kancha and mixed houses, have more likelihood to witness HEC. Besides, respondents who are illiterate or at primary education level are more likely to regard elephant as a main problematic animal around their villages and refuse to participate in elephant conservation activity. For the sake of a sustainable environment for both human beings and wildlife, people’s attitudes towards elephants must be friendly in a more prudent way, so that the two communities can live in harmony.

Key words: Human-elephant conflict, Elephant conservation, Chi-square test statistics, Binary logistic Regression, Demographic and socio-economic characteristics, Buxa Tiger Reserve

Chiranjib NAD, Tamal BASU-ROY. Association between people’s attitudes towards human-elephant conflict and their locational, demographic, and socio-economic characteristics in Buxa Tiger Reserve and its adjoining area, India[J]. Regional Sustainability, 2024, 5(1): 100109.

Figures/Tables 5

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Summary of odd ratio of the interview questions."

Variable			Q1								Q2							Q3
			Odd ratio		P-value		95% CI for EXP (B)				Odd ratio		P-value		95% CI for EXP (B)			Odd ratio	P-value	95% CI for EXP (B)
			Odd ratio		P-value		Lower		Upper		Odd ratio		P-value		Lower		Upper	Odd ratio	P-value	Lower	Upper
Location of village	EFVs	10.666		0.000		3.407		33.393		26.101		0.000		8.999		75.704		11.180	0.000	3.456	36.163
	PFVs	6.400		0.001		2.232		18.346		12.170		0.000		5.206		28.453		7.280	0.001	2.348	22.574
	FCVs	7.645		0.001		2.229		26.219		11.104		0.000		3.166		38.941		10.055	0.000	2.835	35.669
	CVs	6.993		0.000		2.362		20.705		10.631		0.000		4.482		25.218		6.399	0.001	2.053	19.947
	OVs (Ref.)	-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-	-	-	-
Gender	Male	2.985		0.000		1.717		5.189		1.007		0.981		0.559		1.815		2.212	0.003	1.308	3.741
Gender	Female (Ref.)	-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-	-	-	-
Age	18-33 years old	2.395		0.019		1.153		4.973		1.373		0.407		0.649		2.904		2.214	0.031	1.073	4.569
	34-48 years old	2.136		0.032		1.069		4.271		1.295		0.486		0.625		2.681		2.484	0.011	1.234	4.998
	>48 years old (Ref.)	-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-	-	-	-
Education level	Illiterate	3.415		0.046		1.021		11.423		0.819		0.755		0.234		2.869		0.172	0.001	0.059	0.500
	Primary and upper primary school level	3.026		0.046		1.020		8.977		0.980		0.973		0.308		3.115		0.283	0.009	0.109	0.731
	Secondary and higher secondary school level	1.039		0.950		0.308		3.504		1.162		0.815		0.331		4.081		0.280	0.016	0.100	0.787
	Higher than higher secondary school level (Ref.)	-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-	-	-	-
Primary occupation	Agriculture	16.399		0.000		6.912		38.904		9.782		0.000		4.438		21.564		.858	0.651	0.441	1.668
	Tea garden labor and other labors	3.462		0.006		1.419		8.446		1.027		0.942		0.494		2.138		.804	0.554	0.389	1.659
	Cattle rearing	3.123		0.086		0.851		11.459		1.990		0.276		0.577		6.867		2.108	0.187	0.697	6.379
	Other occupations (Ref.)	-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-	-	-	-
Secondary occupation	Agriculture	3.257		0.210		0.513		20.659		2.489		0.323		0.409		15.161		2.085	0.415	0.357	12.175
	Forest resource collector	1.764		0.502		0.336		9.260		1.314		0.747		0.250		6.910		1.598	0.578	0.307	8.316
	Cattle rearing	0.931		0.935		0.170		5.115		1.083		0.926		0.199		5.900		2.692	0.248	0.502	14.424
	Labor	3.557		0.159		0.608		20.792		1.117		0.904		0.186		6.712		2.691	0.262	0.477	15.191
	Other part-time jobs (Ref.)	-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-	-	-	-
House type	Kancha house	6.020		0.047		1.021		35.484		8.136		0.000		2.604		25.423		0.703	0.530	0.234	2.111
	Mixed house	6.560		0.038		1.106		38.914		4.827		0.005		1.606		14.506		0.734	0.574	0.250	2.157
	Pucca house (Ref.)	-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-	-	-	-
Source of firewood	Forest	18.029		0.001		3.340		97.316		4.465		0.001		1.830		10.891		2.453	0.059	0.968	6.218
Source of firewood	Purchase (Ref.)	-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-		-	-	-	-
Constant		0.000		0.000		-		-		0.004		0.000		-		-		0.022	0.001	-	-

Table 5

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Variable			Frequency	Percentage (%)
Locational factor	Location of village	Number of respondents living in enclave forest villages (EFVs)	88	17.60
		Number of respondents living in peripheral forest villages (PFVs)	185	37.00
		Number of respondents living in forest and corridor villages (FCVs)	50	10.00
		Number of respondents living in corridor villages (CVs)	108	21.60
		Number of respondents living in other villages (OVs)	69	13.80
Demographic factor	Gender	Male	370	74.00
	Gender	Female	130	26.00
	Age	18-33 years old	197	39.40
		34-48 years old	198	39.60
		>48 years old	105	21.00
Socio-economic factor	Ethnicity	Nepalese	165	33.00
		Adibasi	148	29.60
		Rabha	59	11.80
		Rajbanshi	53	10.60
		Garo and Mech	28	5.60
		Others	47	9.40
	Religion	Hindu	343	68.60
		Christian	130	26.00
		Buddhist	21	4.20
		Others	6	1.20
	Caste	General	110	22.00
		Schedule caste	71	14.20
		Schedule tribe	289	57.80
		Other backward castes	30	6.00
	Poverty level	Above poverty line	100	20.00
	Poverty level	Below poverty line	400	80.00
	Education level	Illiterate	122	24.40
		Primary and upper primary school level	282	56.40
		Secondary and higher secondary school level	67	13.40
		Higher than higher secondary school level	29	5.80
	Primary occupation	Agriculture	241	48.20
		Tea garden labor and other labors	151	30.20
		Cattle rearing	24	4.80
		Other occupations	84	16.80
	Secondary occupation	Agriculture	47	9.40
		Forest resource collector	245	49.00
		Cattle rearing	136	27.20
		Labor	59	11.80
		Other part-time jobs	13	2.60
	Household income	<60 USD/month	366	73.20
		60-120 USD/month	109	21.80
		>120 USD/month	25	5.00
	House type	Kancha house	246	49.20
		Mixed house	229	45.80
		Pucca house	25	5.00
	Source of firewood	Forest	446	89.20
	Source of firewood	Purchase	54	10.80

Question	Response	Frequency	Percentage (%)
Q1: Have you ever faced any form of human-elephant conflict (HEC) in the last year?	Yes	215	43.00
	No	285	57.00
Q2: Do you recognize elephant as a main problematic animal in your neighborhood?	Yes	356	71.20
	No	144	28.80
Q3: Do you want to participate in elephant conservation activity to assist forest department?	Yes	160	32.00
	No	340	68.00

Variable		Q1			Q2			Q3
Variable		Chi-square	df	P-value	Chi-square	df	P-value	Chi-square	df	P-value
Locational factor	Location of village	60.603	4	<0.001	135.674	4	<0.001	40.040	4	<0.001
Demographic factor	Gender	16.795	1	<0.001	2.182	1	0.140	13.164	1	<0.001
Demographic factor	Age	12.957	2	0.002	12.827	2	0.002	19.247	2	<0.001
Socio-economic factor	Ethnicity	22.163	5	<0.001	25.705	5	<0.001	3.373	5	0.643
	Religion	5.075	3	0.166	10.756	3	0.013	3.067	3	0.381
	Caste	3.688	3	0.297	4.660	3	0.198	8.184	3	0.042
	Poverty level	1.836	1	0.175	4.099	1	0.043	0.919	1	0.338
	Education level	18.644	3	<0.001	3.716	3	0.294	31.178	3	<0.001
	Primary occupation	97.515	3	<0.001	89.011	3	<0.001	7.846	3	0.049
	Secondary occupation	22.250	4	<0.001	9.938	4	0.041	5.761	4	0.218
	Household income	7.541	2	0.023	18.452	2	<0.001	0.651	2	0.722
	House type	14.691	2	0.001	26.429	2	<0.001	0.253	2	0.881
	Source of firewood	38.141	1	<0.001	51.018	1	<0.001	6.541	1	0.011
Behavioral factor	Past experience of witnessing HEC	-	-	-	138.146	1	<0.001	4.704	1	0.030
Attitudinal factor	Considering elephant as the main problematic animal	-	-	-	-	-	-	19.918	1	<0.001

Test	BLR model 1	BLR model 2	BLR model 3
Omnibus test	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001
Hosmer-Lemeshow test	0.522	0.190	0.140
Cox-Snell R² (%)	35.40	35.80	17.30
Nagelkerke R² (%)	47.50	51.20	24.20
Overall correct classification rate (%)	79.80	84.40	72.60