A community-based conservation project in Zimbabwe has established a successful model for reducing human-elephant conflict through local training and employment, supported by the Sansom Conservation Leadership Alumni Fund.
The initiative, led by Conservation Leadership alumnus Rory Wilson working with eleCREW, trained local residents in the Sekebelo community near Victoria Falls in elephant deterrence techniques and established a Community Guardian programme to provide ongoing conflict mitigation support.
Human-elephant conflict presents ongoing challenges across southern Africa's elephant ranges, with subsistence farming communities frequently experiencing crop damage. Across the region, management responses to conflict situations create pressures for both human communities dependent on agriculture and elephant populations requiring extensive ranges.
The project addressed these challenges through a combination of community education and locally-based monitoring. Ten Sekebelo residents participated in a three-day workshop covering elephant behaviour, conflict prevention methods including chilli fence construction, and basic wildlife monitoring techniques.
A distinctive element of the training involved interaction with nine habituated elephants housed at the eleCREW facility. These former tourism animals, originally working elephants retired from safari operations, provided participants with direct experience of elephant behaviour under controlled conditions. For many community members, this represented their first positive interaction with elephants rather than conflict-related encounters.
Following the workshop, one participant was employed as a Community Guardian and equipped with a bicycle, GPS unit and mobile phone to support monitoring and maintenance activities across the community's agricultural areas. The Guardian role includes overseeing installation and maintenance of deterrent systems, conducting wildlife patrols, and providing regular reports on human-elephant interactions.
The project has facilitated installation of chilli fences and beehives, which serve both as elephant deterrents and potential income sources. Weekly reporting by the Guardian is providing data on local human-elephant interactions that may inform future conservation interventions in the area.
Whilst the project's twelve-month timeframe limits assessment of long-term effectiveness, early indicators suggest community engagement with the approach.
For eleCREW, managing the international grant provided experience in donor reporting and project administration, building organisational capacity for future funding applications. The Zimbabwe-based team is now seeking additional funding to continue the Guardian programme beyond its initial term.
The Sansom Conservation Leadership Alumni Fund supported this work as part of its commitment to backing practical conservation initiatives developed by Cambridge Masters in Conservation Leadership graduates, with particular emphasis on projects demonstrating community engagement and measurable conservation outcomes.