The struggle with stray elephants has become a fact of everyday life in Buliisa, an area bordering Murchison Falls National Park (MFNP). The park is situated 34.2 kilometres away from Buliisa Town Council.
Reports indicate that elephants have bludgeoned to death up to an estimated eight people in the last two years while unspecified acreage of crops was devastated.
Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) the national agency responsible for managing Uganda’s wildlife says due to an enhanced conservation drive, the number of elephants in Murchison Falls National Park has shot up from around 200 in 1990 to 2,726.
There are ongoing studies to establish whether rising temperatures, extreme weather and reduced rainfall driven by climate change could be forcing them to migrate to long distances in search of water.
However, the scenario of human-elephants conflict resembles the increasing attrition posed by Chimpanzees where local communities have to face-off with increasingly aggressive primates, to the extent that they have in one instance displaced humans from their homesteads.
This is after a big section of their natural habitats has been decimated by human activity, forcing them to veer outside.
Buliisa district Vice Chairperson, Gilbert Tibasiima, said the elephant population could have overwhelmed the available habitat and locals may stop growing food crops for fear of providing elephants a ready and freely-available source of livelihoods.
He also blames human activities such as road construction and oil and gas activities that have antagonised wildlife habitat in the national park forcing elephants to stray.
“Of course there are two rigs introduced in the park, they (elephants) don’t like noise and awkward lights at night. So, they will move away from places which do not have noise and natural light like moonlight and darkness,” Tibasiima told The Albertine Journal on July 20.
In 2021, French oil firm TotalEnergies started constructing an industrial park in Buliisa district to establish Tilenga oil project where they cleared a 700-acre piece of land that will host a central processing facility, construction camps, a drilling support base and a cobweb of pipelines as Uganda embarks on a journey to extract its 6.5 billion barrels of oil in its Albertine graben.
The Albertine Journal could not connect oil projects to the rampaging elephants since the Tilenga oil project development activities are not inside the conservation area. It is just where a large area which had scattered trees has been cleared.
Ecological importance of elephants
Elephants, the largest living land animals, play an essential role in their environment. They are ‘landscape architects’ –for instance as they move around and feed, they create clearings in wooded areas, which lets new plants grow and forests regenerate naturally.
And then there is seed dispersal. When elephants eat seed bearing plants and fruits, the seeds often re-emerge undigested.
It’s the way a lot of plants spread. And elephants eat big seeds that small animals can’t. Without elephants, the natural structure and functioning of their landscapes would be very different which would have impacts on the other wildlife and the people who share that space.
Elephants are popular with tourists, which can be an important source of income for communities. But elephants need a lot of land to find enough food and water. They can roam across more than 30,000 square kilometres.
But the space available to elephants in Africa has more than halved since 1979, according to the Wild Wide Fund for Nature.
Why elephants roam outside the park
The stray movement of elephants is a seasonal phenomenon usually done in search of scarce food and water.
The herbivores, which are known to devour large swathes of crop land, have caused food insecurity in Buliisa, creating increased tensions between conservationists and the community.
Tibasiima fears this could further lead to hunger and starvation and stop residents from making ends meet. Locals who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, face dwindling harvests and financial losses.
Guarding crops is now a full time job as a coping mechanism. Where they get attacked by the elephants. Robinah Kansime, a resident of Ngwedo said sometimes they beat saucepans, jerrycans with sticks, blow loud whistles and vuvuzelas to chase away the elephants.
But ecologists also attribute it to disruption of their routes. Tibasiima said the conflicts escalated since Karuma Bridge had problems and the government closed it to heavy motor vehicles for three-months starting May 24 for repair.
All vehicles, buses, trucks are now passing through the middle of the national park-from Packwatch through Para Bridge to Masindi and connect to Kampala.
Previously, they were passing via Karuma or outside the park which had reduced the stray elephants’ incidents.
Tibasiima refutes claims that food and water could be what is forcing elephants to stray in communities, adding that in the past they were at peace with the community until disturbance started.
“Elephant herds follow historic migration routes. If they passed here 1000 years ago they would be passing through that corridor and the residents knew it.”
He said in Buliisa commonly known as Bugungu land the renowned corridors for the elephants are Waiga, Bugana, Mivule, Pondiga, Kakora, Nyamitete, Mubaku and Khartoum. Some community members are aware of these routes while newcomers are not aware.
He calls on UWA to increase awareness and sensitisation of the community on the behavior of these elephants for them to get to know and see how they can co-exist.
What should be done?
As to how the present standoff with elephants can be alleviated, ecologists that The Albertine Journal spoke to proffered professional expert standpoints.
Moses Semahunge, a project officer with The Bulindi Chimpanzee and Community Project (BCCP), said UWA should research and ascertain data as to why elephants move out of national park and put strategies.
He said one of the best strategies involves eco-beekeeping because elephants are naturally deterred by the presence of bees, so local farmers need to have hives along the border of their gardens.
He said when an elephant enters a garden, bees sometimes enter its trunk which disturbs it and keeps hitting it on the tree so that the buzzing and stinging insect can come out. This forces the elephants to run away.
Semahunge asks UWA to use fires as a control tool, adding: “In the past we have seen controlled fires used to burn down the park which forces wild animals to move to other areas to look for food or resort to soil for survival. They should burn one component and next week burn another one so that if block A is burnt they (elephants) can move to block B.”
He said there is a need to develop sustainable livelihoods so that if crops are destroyed other incomes can support locals neighbouring the park such as village saving associations and eco-tourism that have proved to serve the people well.
Semahunge said with the increase in elephant numbers, there is cause to clap hands (celebrate) because they have achieved the goal of UWA.
“The numbers will boost tourism activities and incomes. This means people’s way of life will also improve. So there is a need to put strategies to use resources very well to reduce human-elephant conflicts.”
He said oil and gas can have some negative implications on wildlife but adds that oil firms can implement activities with minimal disturbance and adhere to environmental, and social impact assessment recommendations to ensure minimal damage to the environment.
The Uganda Wildlife Act, 2019 tells the government to share 25% of annual revenues generated from tourist entry fees with communities that neighbour the national park.
This is aimed at nurturing conservation and attitudes of communities neighbouring the national park.
Semahunge says UWA should scale up vigilance to follow up how the revenue scheme is implemented.
“Otherwise if nothing is done the people who surround the park may end up in poverty and engage in poaching in the park.”
Bashir Hangi, the UWA Spokesperson, on July 28, told The Albertine Journal that they have been remitting the revenues to the district leadership who decides on which livelihood project to invest in.
He said in the past they (local leadership) have constructed classrooms, health facilities and had enterprise development projects like beekeeping and poultry done for the community to monitor and safeguard the natural resource that they hope would lead to long-term promotion of conservation of the park.
This will also stop the community from attempts to encroach and poach in the park. Going forward, Tibasiima wants UWA to train community scouts to handle the elephants and provide more guns to escort them to the park in case they stray into the community.
He implores residents to grow crops like onions on the boundaries of the park which are not edible by elephants.
What makes elephants angry?
Semahune said any wild animal will get annoyed once provoked by humans and stressful living conditions-no food and water.
“This makes them turn angry and panic. Wave their ears, tear tree branches and raise dust, actions meant to scare people to go away.”
Controlling stray elephants
In northern Tanzania alarm systems are deployed. Each night, crop protection volunteers keep watch throughout the village.
If elephants are spotted heading into gardens, they come into action, armed with elephant alarm kits. The alarm kit involves four sequential steps, each deployed only if the previous strategy didn’t work.
These methods don’t harm the elephant, they just make the elephant uncomfortable enough to turn around.
Use of chili paper
Chili powder can also be used to produce smoke at night to help keep elephants away from crops. Chili bricks are made from adding water to a mixture of half cow dung and half ground chili powder.
The mixture is moulded to form bricks around 16 centimetre and 20 centimetre diameter, according to Mara Elephant Project.
World Wide Conservation Society study of using smelly paper-fermenting and putting has worked in Karuma conservation area of Murchison National Park.
The smell was deterring elephants from coming near where the smell was but unfortunately the project was not being rolled out on a large scale-it was being piloted.
Need for an electric fence
Semahunge said the other solution would be to construct a 20 kilometre electric fence to deter the elephants, a resolution that Hangi said would be met only when the agency got some funds secured to stop feuds between humans and other wild animals.
The fence which helps keep wildlife and humans apart, separates the gardens of the farmers from a section of the national park.
An ordinary looking waist-high fence running in a straight line for as far as the human eye can see. In Queen Elizabeth National Park in Southwestern Uganda, three-foot round poles are installed parallel to the park boundary with the community and strung three lines of 2.55 mm high tensile wires across the posts.
How the electric fence works
Semahunge said to deal with problem animals, electric fences control big animals like elephants and Buffaloes by giving them a powerful, short, sharp, shock which is unforgettable.
The shock is a function of the electricity available and total resistance of the circuit. It is both a physical and a psychological barrier.
When the system is switched on, electricity of up to 9,000 volts drawn from solar powered energisers feeds into the wires.
When the wires touch an elephant on the soft flesh of its chest and trunk, the animal is shocked and forced to turn away before it can reach the posts to vandalise the fence and cross into nearby crop fields.
Although the fence’s voltage is high, the current is low implying that it cannot electrocute a human being to death. Also if a person touches the wires unknowingly receives a strong shock but not one that would kill them.
But it is hard for an electric fence to stop all wild animals from straying into communities. There are some wilds that cannot be stopped by an electric fence such as crested cranes, baboons and monkeys.
The fence would also act as a relief to UWA to stop spending money in compensations to victims of wildlife attacks.
The UWA Act 2019, as amended, provides for compensation, but this can be done through committees, which are set up right from village, parish and sub-county to the district level.
Relevant district officials must be members on those committees. Others on the committee include conservationists and community members.
The aforesaid committees have since not been constituted well, Hangi told The Albertine Journal, adding that it is why some victims have not been compensated on time.
The same law says if crops are destroyed by baboons, monkeys and bush pigs, the owners will not be compensated because these are naturally classified as vermins.
Early this year, Buliisa district leaders said they had committed 50% from the sh700m UWA revenue shares to complete the construction of Kirama Vocational Institute that has for 15 years stalled due to lack of funds.
Fred Lukumu, the Buliisa district chairperson said they hope once the vocation is completed it will benefit people to gain skills and address un-employment challenges-benefit from employment opportunities created by the oil industry.
However, Christopher Kwemara, a resident of Kirama village, Buliisa sub-county said this is a drop in the ocean, adding that they have more pressing needs such as lack of access to clean water, poor soils which need fertilisers and lack of income generating projects.
“We have been hearing from UWA that Murchison is Uganda’s largest national park which rakes in a lot of money. We need better lives so that people don’t be forced into killing elephants (poaching) for their tusks and ivory, which are then traded illegally in the international market to make ends meet. Our sons and daughters who are qualified to work with UWA should also be given jobs,” he added.
Hangi said they hope to employ locals as community scouts to ensure they are able to chase elephants away whenever they are seen in the community.
“We are fencing problem animal hotspots but Buliisa should be patient. We are facing delays in procurement process.”
Are elephants dangerous to humans?
According to Henry Sinclair in Animal Encyclopedia, elephants are known to be one of the most emphatic and kind species in the whole animal kingdom.
Although they are not an active threat, they can attack people in self-defense or the protection of their calves.
And charge when they feel threatened-injured, sick, or harassed. Male elephants are sometimes aggressive when displaying their dominance.
When challenged or threatened, they react in different ways; they tend to make noise and fuss to show their dominance, to show their strength, males often mock-charge; they spread their ears out and start flapping, looking straight at the threat, and they also raise their head and trunk to let the enemy know that they are dangerous.
This story was published with the support of a modest stipend from Minority Rights Group International
