Abstract

In Northern Botswana human population growth, coupled with the intensification of agriculture, has fragmented natural habitats and brought African elephant (Loxodonta Africana) populations into contact with people seeking to graze domestic livestock or grow crops in what was once natural habitat. Consequentially, direct conflicts between humans and elephants have increased, which, in turn, has intensified negative attitudes towards wildlife and undermined local support for conservation initiatives. This problem has been exacerbated by a highly successful conservation strategy. Protected from hunting the elephant population has grown in size by 5% each year since censuses began in 1991 and is now the largest free ranging population in Africa (~120,000 individuals). As a result, the spatial range of elephant migrations has expanded by 43%, well beyond the boundaries of protected areas, and into increasing contact, and thus conflict, with human populations.

The elephant census and conflict data will be evaluated in conjunction with environmental data derived from DMC and information on protected areas, land use, human population, and the production of crops from the Central Statistics Office, Demography Unit.

One of the problems of implementing this approach is that appropriate environmental data is not measured the in sufficient detail over large areas. DMC can overcome this problem as it has the potential to map and monitor all the main environmental controls on elephant abundance and distribution. The DMC sensor can efficiently image the entire Elephant range in Northern Botswana in one orbital pass. No other sensor can do this with equivalent spatial and temporal resolution.