Assessment of Crop Damage and Agropastoralist Attitudes Towards Crop Raiders in the Frontier Area of Gambella National Park, Western Ethiopia: Implications for Human Wildlife Conflict Mitigation

Abstract

Crop damage by wild animal impacts people’s livelihood in Ethiopia. This study aimed to assess the incidence of crop damage and agropastoralist attitude towards crop raiders in the frontier area of Gambella National Park, Western Ethiopia, from September 2017 to May 2018 using semi-structured questionnaire. Warthog (26.6%), anubis baboon (25.5%), grivet monkey (21.9%), bushpig (10.4%) and porcupine (15.6%) were identified as crop pest responsible for damage of sesame (22.7%), maize (21.7%), rice (21.1%), green gram (14.8%) sweet potato (11.3%) and sorghum (8.5%). Cohen's omega tests revealed small values for all crop raiders, indicating uniform damage across villages, except bushpigs, which exhibited inconsistent crop damage with a medium effect size (w=0.324). Among crops, sesame damage was significant with a large effect size (w=0.561) showing its inconsistence across villages. Despite some informants’ lack of response (36.19%) to questions about ways to mitigate crop loss due to wildlife damage, suggestions for eradicating (28.57%) and reducing (17.62%) or relocating (17.62%) were made with medium effect size (w=0.314) exhibiting its inconsistency across villages. The study reported prevailing significant negative attitude (70.0%) towards crop raiders with large effect size (w=0.789) revealing its variations among villages. The Potential for Conflict Index₂ analysis revealed no consensus among attitudinal segments on accepting crop damage by wild animals. Skewed responses for all crop raiders revealed the prevalence of negative attitudes regardless of actual damage extent. Regression model revealed factors such as age and education influenced native people’s attitudes necessitating sustainable and culturally sensitive conservation strategies to mitigate human-wildlife conflicts.