Dealing with human-elephant conflict in Gabon
Project launched to foster peaceful human-elephant co-existence in Gabon.
A two-year project fostering peaceful human-elephant co-existence in Gabon was launched by the Minister of Water and Forests on the 17th of February 2025.
The project, with funding from the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), will be implemented with the government by the Wildlife Conservation Society in partnership with Space for Giants.
Uptick in human-elephant conflict
Gabon has been a champion for biodiversity conservation, with the latest nationwide forest elephants census confirming Gabon as the single largest population of forest elephants in Africa, estimated at 95,000 individuals.
However, this conservation success has also led to a significant uptick in incidents of forest elephants destroying food crops, leading to food insecurity in rural areas.
In addition to crops, direct conflicts between humans and elephants sometimes result in injuries and loss of human life.
In December last year, the head of the Gabonese Government Raymond Ndong Sima, met with conservation NGOs and said that crop raiding and recurring elephant attacks, mainly affecting unarmed women and children, are a cause for concern and a source of food insecurity in local communities.
“We call on conservation NGOs to work closely with the government to propose concrete and effective actions to protect local communities while respecting Gabon’s conservation commitments,” he said.
Solutions to prevent damage
To respond to this, the new project will install around 1,800 mobile fences in all nine provinces of the country, improve agricultural practices for optimised food production, expand human-elephant conflict outreach and pilot deployment of elephant insurance policies to compensate villagers for damage caused by elephants.
The Minister of Water and Forests, Général de Brigade Maurice Ntossui Allogo says that through the CAFI program, they are striving to mitigate this increasingly recurrent conflict.
“Through studies, we are also trying to implement the policy of building electric barriers.”
Genesis of the initiative
According to Gaspard Abitsi, WCS Gabon Country Director, this project is the result of an efficient collaborative effort between Gabonese government agencies, conservation NGOs and the CAFI national focal point which allowed in an extremely constrained time to mature this project and thus provide a rapid response to the Prime Minister’s call-in mid-December 2024.
“This is a crucial contribution from the international community which consolidates its support for the Gabonese government’s constant efforts in the preservation of the forests and wildlife of the Congo Basin.
“This first initiative will certainly encourage other donors to invest more in this issue, to improve the peaceful coexistence between man and the forest elephant in Gabon,” says Abitsi.
Dealing with human-elephant conflict in Gabon
