Human-Wildlife Conflict: The Case of Crop Raiding and its Socio-Economic Implications Around Pendjari Biosphere Reserve, Northern Benin

Abstract

Human–wildlife conflict is becoming a serious threat for both wildlife conservation and human well-being. Its main representations are livestock predation and crop raiding. This chapter examines the problem of crop raiding by wildlife and its socio-economic implications around Pendjari Biosphere Reserve in northern Benin. Data were collected in 2017 through field observations, semi-structured interviews, and a questionnaire survey of 209 farmers of the surrounding villages of the reserve, and 98% of them reported losses of crop every year due to wildlife. Crops with the highest degree of destruction are cotton, maize, millet, and sorghum, and the wild animals responsible for this are mainly baboon, warthog, and elephant. Crop raiding causes, for an average farmer, an annual financial loss ranging from $94.64 in farms of sorghum to $311.8 in farms of cotton. Compared to the annual minimum salary in Benin, these numbers are considerable. Farmers try to manage the impacts of crop raiding with various mitigation measures such as guarding, but the heavy toll of crop raiding and the low level of effectiveness of such measures clearly reveal the vulnerability of agricultural households bordering protected areas