How framing human-wildlife conflict led to a vicious cycle

The just-ended budget session had its fair share of charged debates on how ‘dangerous’ wild animals wreak havoc in the lives of villages across Tanzania.

From the question and answer sessions to the debate on the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, MPs vented and complained about the lack of action to stop the loss of lives and property in villages living along wildlife corridors and near national parks and game areas.

Read: 7 elephants killed as human-wildlife conflict rages

Because parliamentary sessions are televised live, legislators’ reactions to human-wildlife conflict are normally consumed ‘uncensored’ by the public. In many cases, of course, those same reactions are repeated almost verbatim by a large section of the media.

It frames wild animals as ‘dangerous’, ‘destructive’, and ‘killers of humans’. The general narrative paints humans as the only victims in the conflict and animals as the aggressors.

But it is not true. Humans' habit of encroaching into wildlife areas has partly contributed to the conflicts. Humans not only engage in poaching and hunting; they also cultivate and even establish settlements in wildlife areas, such as wildlife corridors, that put them directly in contact with the animals. In all these cases, it is the humans who are the trespassers and aggressors, not the animals.

Read: Wildlife conservation legislation unfriendly to local communities

"But when a confrontation results in the loss of life or property to humans, the media framing of the news stories tends to throw the blame on animals," says John Noronha, Monitoring and Evaluation Manager at USAID Tuhifadhi Maliasili activity.

This should change, he adds. And in this, the media has a significant role to play. Journalists need to check the tone of news sources during human-wildlife conflict and ensure that the news articles provide the setting of the incident.

The setting is essential in indicating who exactly the trespassers were in the given conflict.

“When reporting on human-wildlife conflict journalists should include information on how to prevent and mitigate such a situation; provide a context for the conflict," he said at a workshop on conservation organised by the Journalists' Environmental Association of Tanzania (JET).

It is also important to seek input from wildlife authorities such as the Tanzania Wildlife Authority (TAWA), and conservation experts, Mr Noronha adds. USAID Tuhifadhi Maliasili (Preserve Natural Resources) is a five-year activity that addresses threats to animal movement and biodiversity in Tanzania.

To implement the activity, USAID is working with the media through JET to increase awareness of achieving the key goals in conservation.

Government at the crossfire of human-wildlife conflict?

The government’s response to MPs’ outbursts on human-wildlife conflict both inside and outside the august House is usually conditioned by MPs' tone and attitude.

Cabinet ministers always enlist actions that they have taken against dangerous animals, which are most often lethal.

Read: Government unveils 10-year plan on environmental conservation

That is where the rhetoric ends

In practice, however, the government is torn between the necessity to ‘protect’ wild animals against human encroaching who threaten the beasts’ survival and the popular need to ‘protect’ human lives and property against ‘dangerous’ animals.

The government’s conflictual position has put the paramilitary conservation force troops in the crossfire. And this has turned the nature of the conflict into a triangle; humans versus wild animals; wild animals versus humans; conservation force troops versus humans; and humans versus the conservation force troops.

There have been constant allegations of people being killed and injured by paramilitary officers, and vice versa. While most of the confrontations have involved poachers, there have also been clashes between conservation paramilitary officers and villagers.

The negative framing of human-wildlife conflicts complicates the government’s efforts to transform wildlife preservation from the colonial-era wildlife protection mentality, which was defined by penalties, fines, and shoot-to-kill orders for people who trespassed in wildlife areas, to sustainable conservation strategies that are rooted in coexistence.

Various factors stand in the way of the government's conservation strategy transformation efforts. Firstly, the colonial-era policy created enough animosity between humans and wild animals.

Secondly, population growth has seen humans encroach into game areas and wildlife corridors. Climate change worsens the situation. During colonial times, Tanzania’s population was less than nine million. Now it is over 60 million.

With the current human population growth rate of over three percent per year, the population is projected to increase to 89 million by 2035.

This could cause increased human-wildlife interaction and further conflict between the two.

A heavily rural society, with few economic options, has also been forced to depend on natural resources for survival, which involve hunting, poaching, beekeeping, and logging.

This, of course, leads to confrontations with wild animals.

As it tries to move away from the seemingly ‘pro-animals’ and ‘anti-humans’ conservation policy, the government finds itself entangled in the negative framing trap as well.

One example is the naming of some key pieces of legislation that paint wild animals as dangerous, like the Wild Conservation (Dangerous Animals Damage Control) Regulations, 2011.

 Having allocated a sizeable portion of land for conservation, the government is now under pressure to reduce it to accommodate the growing population.

According to estimates, a third of Tanzania's total area is under conservation.

In September 2019, the government de-listed 12 protected areas with a total area of 707,659.94 acres and gave the land to villagers.

Seven forest reserves with an area of 46,715 acres were also given to villagers to conduct economic activities.

And in June 2023, at the end of the budget session, the Parliament unanimously approved the government’s request to change the status of the Kigosi national park into a forest reserve to enable people from 126 surrounding villages located in six districts to conduct sustainable activities in the 7,460-square- kilometre area.

The law bans humans from conducting any kind of activity in national parks.

Kigosi, one of Tanzania’s newest national parks, was established through Government Declaration No. 924 of 2019 to "strengthen conservation efforts and promote tourism," according to the minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Mohammed Mchengerwa.

"It is expected that the current number of 1,764 beekeepers tending 521,406 beehives in the forest reserve will increase tremendously and contribute to honey production from the current figure of 32,691 metric tonnes to 138,000 metric tonnes per year," Mr Mchengerwa told MPs.

The challenge will be how to ensure coexistence between humans and wild animals, who are still located in the former national park, without causing conflicts.

Experts warn, however, that as both human and animal populations are ever-increasing, there will be no choice but to ensure coexistence.