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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/fences/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Wed, 07 Oct 2026 20:23:32 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<title>News on Fences</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/fences/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Electric fences help farmers and elephants coexist in Zambian borderlands</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/electric-fences-help-farmers-and-elephants-coexist-in-zambian-borderlands/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/electric-fences-help-farmers-and-elephants-coexist-in-zambian-borderlands/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 May 2026 10:46:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19164707/Elephants.Loxodonta.africana_LiwondeNPMalawi_StGeorgesFlickrBYNCND2.0-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319713</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Southern Africa, and Zambia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conflict, Conservation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Fences, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Mammals, Protected Areas, Tracking, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LUNDAZI, Zambia — “It’s not possible [to coexist with elephants], because they are animals and we are human beings — they should have their own home,” says Esnart Banda, a Zambian farmer whose maize and tobacco fields lie 5 meters, just 16 feet, from the boundary of Malawi’s Kasungu National Park. Just two thin strands [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LUNDAZI, Zambia — “It’s not possible [to coexist with elephants], because they are animals and we are human beings — they should have their own home,” says Esnart Banda, a Zambian farmer whose maize and tobacco fields lie 5 meters, just 16 feet, from the boundary of Malawi’s Kasungu National Park. Just two thin strands of orange, plastic-coated wire now stand between Banda’s crops and Kasungu’s elephants. The wires, known as polywire fencing and supplied by conservation group IFAW and Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW), are strung taut between straight, evenly cut fence poles that Banda and her helpers erected. To the uninitiated, they hardly seem capable of stopping a herd of elephants. But Banda herself attests to their effectiveness. “It’s strong, it helps us,” she tells Mongabay. “If somebody touches it, they fall.” Farmer Harry Msimuko stands in front of wires that carry a powerful electric charge, protecting his own crops and those of 19 other households from elephants from nearby Kasungu National Park. Image by Ryan Truscott for Mongabay. On a neighboring farm, within sight of the bare granite faces of Malawi’s Miwonde Hills, Harry Msimuko shows off the “power house” in his living room: two solar-powered batteries with wiring snaking up the wall. When he flicks a switch at night, pulses of electricity run along 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) of fencing enclosing not only his crops but those of 19 neighbors. The only recent conflict, he says, has been with hyenas crossing from&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/electric-fences-help-farmers-and-elephants-coexist-in-zambian-borderlands/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/electric-fences-help-farmers-and-elephants-coexist-in-zambian-borderlands/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319713</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Elephants return to Mount Elgon side of Uganda after four decades</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/elephants-return-to-mount-elgon-side-of-uganda-after-four-decades/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/elephants-return-to-mount-elgon-side-of-uganda-after-four-decades/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 10:03:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Benjamin Jumbe]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18062559/Mount-Elgon-Uganda-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319622</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, Kenya, and Uganda]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Fences, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Infrastructure, Mammals, Migration, Protected Areas, Tracking, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[According to monitoring with tracking collars by the Mount Elgon Foundation (MEF), last year at least 60 elephants crossed from Kenya into the Ugandan side of Mount Elgon, a vast volcanic mountain that straddles the border, returning to a part of their natural range where they’ve not been seen for over 40 years. MEF funds [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[According to monitoring with tracking collars by the Mount Elgon Foundation (MEF), last year at least 60 elephants crossed from Kenya into the Ugandan side of Mount Elgon, a vast volcanic mountain that straddles the border, returning to a part of their natural range where they’ve not been seen for over 40 years. MEF funds community projects aimed at reducing forest degradation and raising awareness of environmental issues, as well as a team of 18 community scouts on the Kenyan side of the mountain, part of the East African Wild Life Society’s Mount Elgon Elephant Project. MEF’s chair, Chris Powles, told Mongabay that back in 2022, scouts tracked four elephants crossing the Suam river, which marks the border between the two countries. Drone footage of elephants on the Ugandan side of Mount Elgon. Image courtesy of UWA. In an email interview, Powles said a number of factors could explain the elephants’ return, though it’s impossible to say for certain what’s prompted them to reestablish themselves. “[These] include the growth of the elephant population on the Kenya side, the increasing human pressure on the Kenya side, the relative safety for them on the Uganda side as it is all national park (unlike in Kenya),” he wrote. “And, maybe, the elephants alive from the time when others of them were killed in Uganda have now died naturally and so their memory of what happened in Uganda may have passed.” In the late 1970s and 80s, elephants in Uganda and other parts of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/elephants-return-to-mount-elgon-side-of-uganda-after-four-decades/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/elephants-return-to-mount-elgon-side-of-uganda-after-four-decades/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319622</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Radio and satellite alerts help Zambian farmers live with dangerous wildlife</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/radio-and-satellite-alerts-help-zambian-farmers-live-with-dangerous-wildlife/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/radio-and-satellite-alerts-help-zambian-farmers-live-with-dangerous-wildlife/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 May 2026 18:54:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/15184240/Elephants_IFAW_fence-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319556</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Southern Africa, and Zambia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Fences, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Infrastructure, Mammals, Migration, Protected Areas, Tracking, Wildlife, Wildlife Corridors, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LUNDAZI, Zambia – In a yellow, single-story building in the eastern Zambian town of Lundazi, a radio presenter fields numerous calls from anxious villagers on nearby farms. Sitting across from presenter Joseph Mwale in the air-conditioned studio are two officials from Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW). One of them, Senior Ranger Mathews [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LUNDAZI, Zambia – In a yellow, single-story building in the eastern Zambian town of Lundazi, a radio presenter fields numerous calls from anxious villagers on nearby farms. Sitting across from presenter Joseph Mwale in the air-conditioned studio are two officials from Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW). One of them, Senior Ranger Mathews Mumbi, tells listeners: “Avoid going out at night to avoid the ngozi (accidental harm).” Many of the villagers tuning in to the Thursday evening program live in a transfrontier conservation area (TFCA) straddling eastern Zambia and neighboring Malawi: dangerous encounters with wild animals is a way of life here. The twice-weekly radio show on Chikaya FM, a community radio station, is sponsored by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), which works with the DNPW to promote human-wildlife coexistence across three Zambian farming districts – Lundazi, Lumezi and Chipangali — home to around half a million people. In theory, the TFCA links Kasungu with Zambia’s Lukusuzi and Luambe National Parks, but to reach the Zambian parks, elephants and other wild animals must cross farmland and roads and navigate past schools and homesteads. Zambia Department of National Parks and Wildlife&#8217;s Mwizaso Chipeta (left) and Mathews Mumbi field questions from callers about human-wildlife conflict from callers during a radio show on Chikaya FM, while IFAW’s community engagement manager Alstone Mwanza (right) listens in. Image by Ryan Truscott for Mongabay. During a break in the radio show, the station runs an advert with the sound of an elephant&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/radio-and-satellite-alerts-help-zambian-farmers-live-with-dangerous-wildlife/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/radio-and-satellite-alerts-help-zambian-farmers-live-with-dangerous-wildlife/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319556</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As elephants return in eastern Zambia, communities adapt to coexistence</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/as-elephants-return-in-eastern-zambia-communities-adapt-to-coexistence/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/as-elephants-return-in-eastern-zambia-communities-adapt-to-coexistence/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 May 2026 15:39:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/13140225/Elephants_farmers_granary-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319328</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Southern Africa, and Zambia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Fences, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Infrastructure, Mammals, Migration, Protected Areas, Tracking, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LUNDAZI, Zambia — The very first time 23-year-old Edward Kumwenda saw elephants, it was after midnight, and they were breaking into his house. That night, two years ago, Kumwenda was sleeping alone in a small brick-and-thatch cottage at his father’s homestead in eastern Zambia’s Chipangali district, when he heard animals approaching. At first, he thought [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LUNDAZI, Zambia — The very first time 23-year-old Edward Kumwenda saw elephants, it was after midnight, and they were breaking into his house. That night, two years ago, Kumwenda was sleeping alone in a small brick-and-thatch cottage at his father’s homestead in eastern Zambia’s Chipangali district, when he heard animals approaching. At first, he thought the sound of breaking twigs and rustling grass was caused by cattle, or worse, cattle thieves targeting his family’s livestock. But then the intruders began tugging at the thatch roof. The room shook, part of the brick wall collapsed, and a large trunk pushed through the hole, curling around one of the bags containing some of that year’s maize harvest and lifting it out. “They got the first bag, second bag, third bag, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,” he recalls, sitting on a stool in his family’s bare, swept yard, as the cassia trees drop yellow flowers and relatives gather to hear the story yet again. “That is enough [maize to last] for the whole year, for me,” he says. Kumwenda thought of escaping through an open window, but kept his nerve, staying silent until his sister and brother — alerted by the noise of the herd breaking in — lit a log fire in the yard and drove the animals away. Edward Kumwenda indicates where elephants broke into the house where he was sleeping two years ago and helped themselves to his family’s maize stores. Image by Ryan Truscott for Mongabay. An elephant&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/as-elephants-return-in-eastern-zambia-communities-adapt-to-coexistence/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/as-elephants-return-in-eastern-zambia-communities-adapt-to-coexistence/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319328</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How Southern African farmers &#038; elephants can both adapt to coexist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/how-southern-african-farmers-elephants-can-both-adapt-to-coexist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/how-southern-african-farmers-elephants-can-both-adapt-to-coexist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Dec 2025 06:41:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/19064047/EC_11-BANNER-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311650</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Fences, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Infrastructure, Mammals, Migration, Research, Tracking, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Elephants are considered a sacred totem by many in northwestern Zimbabwe, but they also frequently raid villagers’ crops near harvest time, says Agripa Ngorima, who has studied attitudes toward conservation in Simangani. During his fieldwork, he presented residents with two scenarios: one in which elephants provided benefits — such as meat, skins for ornaments or [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Elephants are considered a sacred totem by many in northwestern Zimbabwe, but they also frequently raid villagers’ crops near harvest time, says Agripa Ngorima, who has studied attitudes toward conservation in Simangani. During his fieldwork, he presented residents with two scenarios: one in which elephants provided benefits — such as meat, skins for ornaments or safari-industry jobs — and another in which people only incurred costs, including crop losses, fence damage or injury. Their responses diverged sharply: 88% said they would support elephant culls or translocations if they received no benefits, compared with just 20% if elephants supported their livelihoods, and 92% were unwilling to engage in conservation due to lack of financial gain from elephants. “Any cultural willingness to coexist with elephants is conditional and will be withdrawn if livelihoods are threatened,” Ngorima says. Elephants roam freely from Hwange National Park into bordering communal farming lands. IFAW’s EarthRanger project has tracked the movement of collared elephants, with some ranging more than 200 kms from the protected area and traversing communal land along the way. Image courtesy of Tyson Mayr / IFAW. Learning to live with elephants Since his fieldwork in Simangani in 2018, the government and NGOs have introduced outreach programs, teaching villagers about elephant behavior and promoting the cultivation of red-hot chile peppers — plants the animals can’t abide. Yet the most effective deterrent, physical fencing around fields, remains out of reach for most, leaving the majority of households unprotected. “This implementation gap means the current costs of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/how-southern-african-farmers-elephants-can-both-adapt-to-coexist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/how-southern-african-farmers-elephants-can-both-adapt-to-coexist/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311650</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Corridors, not culls, offer solution to Southern Africa’s growing elephant population</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/corridors-not-culls-offer-solution-to-southern-africas-growing-elephant-population/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/corridors-not-culls-offer-solution-to-southern-africas-growing-elephant-population/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Dec 2025 11:01:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/10150424/ElephantsCrossing_ZambeziRiverZambia_JasperDoestWWF-SIZE-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311061</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Fences, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Infrastructure, Mammals, Migration, Research, Tracking, Wildlife, Wildlife Corridors, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Since being collared in Zambia two years ago, a young bull elephant known to researchers as Z16 has walked nearly 12,000 kilometers, or 7,500 miles — three times the distance between New York and Los Angeles. In that time, Z16 has traversed four countries and visited six national parks. In Southern Africa overall, populations of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Since being collared in Zambia two years ago, a young bull elephant known to researchers as Z16 has walked nearly 12,000 kilometers, or 7,500 miles — three times the distance between New York and Los Angeles. In that time, Z16 has traversed four countries and visited six national parks. In Southern Africa overall, populations of elephants are stable, or even growing, but space for them is not. This pressure has increased human-elephant conflict and fueled calls from some for elephant culls. Z16’s epic trek underscores a quieter, more hopeful solution to the region’s so-called “elephant problem”: keeping the routes that connect fragmented ranges open through the creation and protection of wildlife corridors. Situated in the northwestern corner of the Sobbe Wildlife Conservancy, in Namibia’s long, narrow Zambezi region, the Sobbe Corridor provides a link for elephants moving between Botswana, Zambia and Angola. When environmental anthropologist Emilie Köhler began her fieldwork in Sobbe in January 2023, she saw the crooked boughs of trees inside the corridor shaped by countless generations of African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) rubbing their backs as they passed through. “They come into [Namibia’s] Mudumu National Park, then they use the Sobbe Corridor to move into the Zambezi State Forest [also inside Namibia] and then go into Zambia and Angola,” she says. “It connects different protected areas, but also links movements between different countries, which makes it extremely important.” Elephants embark on a daily journey to the Zambezi River from safe havens away from human settlements. Image ©&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/corridors-not-culls-offer-solution-to-southern-africas-growing-elephant-population/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/corridors-not-culls-offer-solution-to-southern-africas-growing-elephant-population/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311061</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Migrating elephants get room to roam via community conservation efforts</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/migrating-elephants-get-room-to-roam-via-community-conservation-efforts/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/migrating-elephants-get-room-to-roam-via-community-conservation-efforts/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Oct 2025 14:44:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hillary Rosner]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/13200427/elephant-roam-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307330</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Fences, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Human-wildlife Conflict, Infrastructure, Mammals, Migration, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The regularly used airstrip outside the town of Archers Post, in northern Kenya, was closed after being damaged in heavy rains, so my flight landed at an even tinier dirt airstrip on the other side of Samburu National Reserve. From there, the road headed south across community-owned grazing lands to the western gate of the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The regularly used airstrip outside the town of Archers Post, in northern Kenya, was closed after being damaged in heavy rains, so my flight landed at an even tinier dirt airstrip on the other side of Samburu National Reserve. From there, the road headed south across community-owned grazing lands to the western gate of the reserve, along the Ewaso Ng’iro River. It was just a week into 2024, and January is normally the start of the dry season, but the rains still hadn’t fully subsided. The reserve, a protected area about the size of Washington, DC—part of a much larger swath of adjacent conservation lands—was a study in green, its plains and hillsides covered in a tangled tumult of vegetation. Almost as soon as we crossed the reserve boundary, we were among elephants, ranging in size from months-old babies to small and spunky adolescents to towering matriarchs and giant bulls. They lumbered about on their baggy-skinned legs and round feet, they snoozed, they roughhoused, they nursed, they waded in the river, they doused themselves with dirt. In the midday heat, they stood in the shade of acacia trees and lazily plucked up wads of greenery with their trunks, then swung it up into their mouths. They were unbothered by the presence of the Land Cruiser I rode in; they wandered right up to the vehicle, some barely more than a trunk’s length away. These were salad days for the Samburu elephants. It had been a long, hard, deadly two years&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/migrating-elephants-get-room-to-roam-via-community-conservation-efforts/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-307330</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In western Nepal, farmers switch to growing turmeric; elephants stay away</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/in-western-nepal-farmers-switch-to-growing-turmeric-elephants-stay-away/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/in-western-nepal-farmers-switch-to-growing-turmeric-elephants-stay-away/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Aug 2025 02:39:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Deepak Adhikari]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/13021727/bardiya-elephants-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=304182</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Crops, Ecology, Elephants, Endangered Species, Fences, Food, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Mitigation, Poverty, Protected Areas, Rivers, Solutions, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Nayaram Sunar vividly remembers the day at the end of monsoon season in 2019, when rain was pouring in relentlessly on his sister’s corn field in the village of Madhuwan in western Nepal’s Bardiya district. A wild elephant (Elephas maximus) not only feasted on the harvest but smashed the family’s modest house. His [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Nayaram Sunar vividly remembers the day at the end of monsoon season in 2019, when rain was pouring in relentlessly on his sister’s corn field in the village of Madhuwan in western Nepal’s Bardiya district. A wild elephant (Elephas maximus) not only feasted on the harvest but smashed the family’s modest house. His sister and her children fled to a neighbor’s home for safety. “I felt terrible,” Sunar recalls. “That’s when I thought: Something must be done.” Sunar, 48, lives in Kailashi, a village nestled between Bardiya National Park and the Kailashi Mid-Hill Community Forest in Nepal’s Lumbini province. Here, human-wildlife conflict is part of everyday life. “We couldn’t even earn 5,000 rupees [$36] from 5 kattha [6,800 square feet] of land,” he says. “The crops didn’t survive. Elephants, wild boars, deer, monkeys — they destroyed everything.” A 2023 study in Bardiya’s Khata corridor, a critical elephant migration route, found that up to 45% of annual crop yield was lost to raids in some settlements, particularly those near rivers and forests. Households closer to park headquarters or protected by patrols experienced significantly less damage. Sabitri Sunar, secretary of the Sahara Farmers’ Group, at her  turmeric-plantation. Image by Prem Bishowkarma. A year after the incident, Sunar mobilized his neighbors to form the Sahara Farmers’ Group, now 40 members strong and made up mostly of Dalit and Indigenous families from Madhuwan and Thakurbaba municipalities. With training and turmeric seeds provided by the Dalit Women’s Upliftment Association, a local nonprofit, they&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/in-western-nepal-farmers-switch-to-growing-turmeric-elephants-stay-away/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-304182</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Chain-link fencing protects livestock from big cat attacks in Tanzania: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/chain-link-fencing-protects-livestock-from-big-cat-attacks-in-tanzania-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/chain-link-fencing-protects-livestock-from-big-cat-attacks-in-tanzania-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Mar 2025 11:27:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gilbert Nakweya]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Ochieng' Ogodo]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/03/31133122/1280px-Lion_Ruaha_National_Park_9_28407027344-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=296737</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Tanzania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Carnivores, Cattle, Fences, Human-wildlife Conflict, Lions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[NAIROBI ― For the last two decades, Matambire Mgemaa, a pastoralist in southern Tanzania in the environs of Ruaha National Park, nighttime has meant staying vigilant to protect his goats, sheep and cattle from lion and leopard attacks in an area that is home to 10% of the world’s wild lions. “This [is] a hectic [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[NAIROBI ― For the last two decades, Matambire Mgemaa, a pastoralist in southern Tanzania in the environs of Ruaha National Park, nighttime has meant staying vigilant to protect his goats, sheep and cattle from lion and leopard attacks in an area that is home to 10% of the world’s wild lions. “This [is] a hectic task. … I [spend] the whole day with the livestock outside, making sure they are fed, but I cannot sleep at night because I will lose them,” Mgemaa says. Because of their excellent night vision, which enables them to hunt more successfully in low light, lions, leopards and hyenas are mostly active at night, the time for their dinner. But a new study published this month in Conservation Letters has found that multiple medium- or high-density fortified enclosures in a neighborhood can shield livestock from the marauding carnivores, as they avoid such areas. The researchers reveal that such fortified pens not only help those who have them reduce attacks on their livestock but also those of their neighbors. In southern Tanzania, a key landscape for large carnivore conservation, agropastoralists keep livestock in fenced compounds at night and herd them to community grazing lands during the day. On average, Mgemaa and his neighbors have lost two of their livestock weekly to the carnivores, but the attacks have drastically reduced. Early in 2024, Mgemaa constructed a chain-link corral to prevent his livestock from being raided in the night by carnivores. Winston Mtandamo, field operations manager at conservation&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/chain-link-fencing-protects-livestock-from-big-cat-attacks-in-tanzania-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-296737</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How a Nepali border village learned to live with migratory wild elephants</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/how-a-nepali-border-village-learned-to-live-with-migratory-wild-elephants/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/how-a-nepali-border-village-learned-to-live-with-migratory-wild-elephants/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Jan 2025 15:08:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Deepak Adhikari]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/01/30035455/fb68ad81-cd52-4105-b4e1-4dd585ae5e48-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=293609</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elephants, Fences, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, and Migration]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BAHUNDANGI, Nepal – The heavy thud against the glass window sent Krishna Bahadur Rasaili’s heart racing. Stepping outside, he saw his granary lay in ruins, and an elephant was feasting on his hard-earned paddy harvest. For years, this has been a terrifying reality in Bahundangi, a village along Nepal’s eastern border with India along the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BAHUNDANGI, Nepal – The heavy thud against the glass window sent Krishna Bahadur Rasaili’s heart racing. Stepping outside, he saw his granary lay in ruins, and an elephant was feasting on his hard-earned paddy harvest. For years, this has been a terrifying reality in Bahundangi, a village along Nepal’s eastern border with India along the Mechi River. Wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), following their ancient migratory routes, frequently storm farms, devour crops and even ransack granaries. Desperate, villagers, including Rasaili, were accustomed to banging their tin drums and waving flaming torches in a futile attempt to drive them away. On the evening of Dec. 8, 2021, Rasaili even contemplated resorting to the old methods. But his family members remembered what local campaigners had told them about elephants and did something different. Instead of shouting or fighting back, they quietly stayed indoors. With half of its body inside their home, the elephant devoured the rice and then moved on. “We no longer fear elephants nor are we angry at them,” Rasaili says. “When they come, we stay inside. If we don’t disturb them, they walk their path. If we shout, they create trouble.” Once a hotspot for human-elephant conflict, this village has transformed itself into a model of peaceful human-wildlife coexistence through a combination of innovative strategies, conservationists say. The communities in the last decade adopted crops that are unappealing to elephants and have changed their attitudes toward the animal, thanks to the effective implementation of government support. “Bahundangi has demonstrated&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/how-a-nepali-border-village-learned-to-live-with-migratory-wild-elephants/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-293609</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Count, connect, conserve: Southern Africa elephant survey points the way (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Jan 2024 20:32:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lisa SteelMichael KnightRobin NaidooRussell TaylorSteven A. Osofsky]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/03181512/Image_1_KAZA-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277336</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Southern Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Charismatic Animals, Commentary, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Fences, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Migration, Research, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the more than 10 years since Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe signed a 2011 treaty to create the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area – the world’s largest transboundary terrestrial conservation area – much has been accomplished. Much also remains to be done. The 2022 KAZA Elephant Survey was a remarkable achievement. It [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the more than 10 years since Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe signed a 2011 treaty to create the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area – the world’s largest transboundary terrestrial conservation area – much has been accomplished. Much also remains to be done. The 2022 KAZA Elephant Survey was a remarkable achievement. It was the first time that Africa’s largest savanna elephant population was surveyed in a fully coordinated and synchronized manner, setting a new benchmark for aerial surveys for which the KAZA Secretariat and partner states deserve much praise; this was truly a major milestone in collaborative management of a globally unique wildlife resource. A typical double veterinary cordon fence in the region. Photo courtesy of M. Atkinson / Animal and Human Health for the Environment and Development (AHEAD) program at Cornell University. KAZA’s elephant population was estimated to be 227,900 (±95% CL 16,743), representing the majority of what’s left of Africa’s elephants. The survey also noted relatively high carcass ratios suggestive of elevated mortality, warranting further investigation as a potential warning sign for the health and stability of this globally important elephant population. Quantifying a wildlife population like this (and understanding its distribution in both space and time) is necessary to inform its management. But counting does not automatically lead to positive conservation outcomes. Many refer to KAZA’s elephants as a metapopulation, as one contiguous group of animals. But that characterization is increasingly misleading, as visible habitat fragmentation continues to take its toll. The habitat corridors&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-277336</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Wild or not? Dilemma over two human-friendly rhinos in Nepal</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/wild-or-not-dilemma-over-two-human-friendly-rhinos-in-nepal/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/wild-or-not-dilemma-over-two-human-friendly-rhinos-in-nepal/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jul 2023 11:48:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/29114609/IMG_20230307_102245-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=271555</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Fences, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, One-horned Rhinos, Poaching, Rewilding, and Rhinos]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Somlal Majhi, a resident of Patihani near Chitwan National Park in Nepal, has an unusual job. He is a herder of rhinos. Majhi watches over two female greater one-horned rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) named Pushpa and Anjali. They were released into the wild by conservation authorities in May after years of human contact. Although [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Somlal Majhi, a resident of Patihani near Chitwan National Park in Nepal, has an unusual job. He is a herder of rhinos. Majhi watches over two female greater one-horned rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) named Pushpa and Anjali. They were released into the wild by conservation authorities in May after years of human contact. Although the rhinos attract tourists, who enjoy taking selfies with them, Majhi says they can damage crops if they aren’t monitored. But conservationists are alarmed by the presence of the rhinos in the area. They say they pose a risk to themselves and to people and urge officials to relocate them as soon as possible. &#8220;Because they were used to humans, they started visiting nearby villages,&#8221; says Bed Khadka, a former park staffer and conservationist. “They need to be removed immediately,” he adds. “Their only shot at survival now is at a zoo in Nepal or abroad.” The rhinos were rescued as calves in 2020 and 2021, when they were injured and abandoned by their mothers. They were raised by the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC), a semigovernmental body, at its office in Sauraha, near the park. They were transported by truck to a wetland near the park&#8217;s headquarters and released without tranquilizers. &#8220;Poachers could easily bait and kill them for their horns,&#8221; Khadka adds. Greater one-horned rhinos are classified as vulnerable by IUCN, the global conservation authority. Their horns are prized in traditional Chinese medicine, despite having no proven benefits. The illegal trade in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/wild-or-not-dilemma-over-two-human-friendly-rhinos-in-nepal/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-271555</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Virtual fences can benefit both ranchers and wildlife</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/virtual-fences-can-benefit-both-ranchers-and-wildlife/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/virtual-fences-can-benefit-both-ranchers-and-wildlife/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Jul 2023 12:40:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/18201623/Vence-Collar-on-Cow-1-e1689711413130-768x484.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=271105</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global, North America, Pacific Northwest, United States, and Washington]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Conservation Technology, Fellows, Fences, Fires, Green, Habitat, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Migration, Pasture, Ranching, Solutions, Sustainability, Technology, Wildlife, Wildlife Corridors, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The old Figlenski Ranch in Washington state’s Tunk Valley is a rugged land of canyons and scrubby sage-brush steppe. This valley with the ranch at its center connects the Cascade and the Rocky Mountain ranges, where lynx, wolverines and even grizzly bears pass through. It’s also winter range for the state’s largest mule deer herd, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The old Figlenski Ranch in Washington state’s Tunk Valley is a rugged land of canyons and scrubby sage-brush steppe. This valley with the ranch at its center connects the Cascade and the Rocky Mountain ranges, where lynx, wolverines and even grizzly bears pass through. It’s also winter range for the state’s largest mule deer herd, and contains breeding grounds for Columbian sharp-tailed grouse. At more than 3,600 hectares (9,000 acres), this land was part of the original Colville Indian Reservation, but had been in the Figlenski family since 1904. Ernie Figlenski was the last in his line and, just days before he died in 2021, signed an agreement with Conservation Northwest — a nonprofit working for wildlife and wildlands from Washington state to the Canadian Rockies — to purchase the land and put it under a conservation covenant. Conservation Northwest then returned the land to the Colville Confederated Tribes, who subsequently leased it to Joy and Mike Wilson, who have been ranching in the area for many years. “We took some friends on a tour, and they said Glacier National Park had nothing on our land,” Mike Wilson says. But beauty aside, there’s something else notable about this particular property. Mike Wilson on his ranch in the Tunk Valley, Washington State. Image courtesy of Joy and Mike Wilson. When the Okanogan Complex fire came through in 2015, the fence posts supporting the barbed wire burned, and no one put them back. That’s uncommon in the American West, where fences typically&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/virtual-fences-can-benefit-both-ranchers-and-wildlife/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-271105</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>&#8216;Shocking&#8217; levels of pangolin deaths from electric fences (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/06/shocking-levels-of-pangolin-deaths-from-electric-fences-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/06/shocking-levels-of-pangolin-deaths-from-electric-fences-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Jun 2023 17:26:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Cara TrivellaEllen Connelly]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/06/02161600/3.-Pangolin-walking-on-her-hind-legs-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=269337</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Commentary, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Fences, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Pangolins, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“South Africa loses between 1,000 and 2,000 pangolins each year to fence electrocutions. This far overshadows the number of individuals that are illegally poached and trafficked,” says Dr Darren Pietersen, one of South Africa’s leading pangolin researchers. There are eight pangolin species worldwide, with four occurring in Asia and four in Africa. Of the four [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“South Africa loses between 1,000 and 2,000 pangolins each year to fence electrocutions. This far overshadows the number of individuals that are illegally poached and trafficked,” says Dr Darren Pietersen, one of South Africa’s leading pangolin researchers. There are eight pangolin species worldwide, with four occurring in Asia and four in Africa. Of the four African species, the Temminck’s ground pangolin, has the largest distribution range as it is found from South Africa all the way northwards to Sudan. Regardless of the species, pangolins are considered the most trafficked mammal globally. Despite this, in South Africa the largest threat to the survival of the pangolin is something else entirely: electric fences. Pietersen et al (2022) identified that there are more than 1,000 electric fence related pangolin mortalities annually in South Africa. When compared to the estimated 50-100 trafficked pangolins, it is evident that the prevalence of electric fences poses the greatest risk to pangolin populations in the country. Pangolin walking on its hind legs. Image courtesy of Tikki Hywood Foundation. Such mortalities occur throughout Africa. However electric fence mortality rates in South Africa significantly overshadow other countries due to the density of electric fences used. It is currently estimated that there are 6 million kilometers of fencing in the country, with an increasing percentage being electrified. This is considerably greater than neighboring countries such as Botswana (~3000km) or Namibia (~1,100km). According to South Africa’s Statistics Department 2020 report 37.9% of the country comprises of commercial farms and game ranches. The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/06/shocking-levels-of-pangolin-deaths-from-electric-fences-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-269337</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mau Forest rehabilitation still overshadowed by forced evictions</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/mau-forest-rehabilitation-still-overshadowed-by-forced-evictions/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/mau-forest-rehabilitation-still-overshadowed-by-forced-evictions/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Jan 2022 10:58:47 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Keit Silale]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/01/25103317/The-Water-Towers-of-East-Africa-Kenya-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=251955</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Community Forests, Conflict, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Fences, Forestry, Forests, Governance, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Landscape Restoration, Logging, Politics, Rehabilitation, and Violence]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MAASAI MAU, Kenya — Two years ago, Kenyan authorities evicted 30,000 people from their homes in the Maasai Mau section of the Mau Forest. The evictees, many of whom had been living here for 20 years or more, say they’ve been stripped of land they paid for and have nowhere else to go. The Mau [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MAASAI MAU, Kenya — Two years ago, Kenyan authorities evicted 30,000 people from their homes in the Maasai Mau section of the Mau Forest. The evictees, many of whom had been living here for 20 years or more, say they’ve been stripped of land they paid for and have nowhere else to go. The Mau forest, 140 kilometers (87 miles) south of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, was declared a forest reserve in the 1950s. The Kenya Forest Service says it’s the largest remaining indigenous forest in Kenya, covering 400,000 hectares (988,000 acres). The forest also includes areas of exotic commercial trees planted by the forest department. The headwaters for many of the region’s most important rivers are found here, including the source of the Mara River, which supports the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem. These rivers are also vital to thousands of communities that depend on them for water for agriculture and domestic use. The southwestern highlands surrounding the forest are densely populated with farmers and herders. Francis Serem moved to the Maasai Mau section of the forest 20 years ago from Kericho county, some 50 km (30 mi) further west. In his mid-50s at the time, he says he paid $600 to a former chief of the area. “I moved here because this place is fertile for farming and it was affordable. This has been my home for the better part of my life,” he says. He set up on 2 hectares (5 acres) growing tea and maize. Tens of thousands of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/mau-forest-rehabilitation-still-overshadowed-by-forced-evictions/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-251955</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Breaking down barriers: Cattle and wildlife compete in Southern Africa</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/breaking-down-barriers-cattle-and-wildlife-compete-in-southern-africa/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/breaking-down-barriers-cattle-and-wildlife-compete-in-southern-africa/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Dec 2019 01:33:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jim Tan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/12/06085111/Cows_OkavangoBotswana_DiegoDelsoWikicommonsCCBYSA4.0-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=224523</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Atlantic Forest, Botswana, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Beef, Cattle, Conservation, Diseases, Elephants, Environment, Environmental Policy, Fences, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Migration, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) is an audacious project that envisions a vast space where migrating species can cross international borders following their ancient seasonal paths. But there’s a problem. “One of the key barriers to connected landscapes in many parts of Southern Africa are disease control fences,” says Steve Osofsky, a professor of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) is an audacious project that envisions a vast space where migrating species can cross international borders following their ancient seasonal paths. But there’s a problem. “One of the key barriers to connected landscapes in many parts of Southern Africa are disease control fences,” says Steve Osofsky, a professor of wildlife health and health policy at Cornell University. An area north of the Okavango Delta panhandle in northwest Botswana illustrates the problem. Here, around 18,000 elephants are hemmed into a roughly triangular pocket of some 8,700 square kilometers (3,360 square miles), isolated from the rest of KAZA to the north and east by disease-control fences, and the waters of the Okavango River and villages to the south and west. The area is also home to 13 villages with a population of more than 16,000 people enclosed alongside the elephants, creating a pressure cooker for human-wildlife conflict. “When you’ve got that many elephants bottled up, that’s one of the most conflict intense areas of the country,” Osofsky says. Mod Masedi, the son of the chief of Habu village in the southern part of the delta, says the conflict has been exacerbated by climate change, with elephants destroying boreholes and water pumps in search of water. “I think it’s getting worse, we haven’t had rain the whole of last year, the whole of the delta is dried up,” he says. “We can’t blame [the elephants], they are also looking for water.” The disease-control fences also prevent elephants&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/breaking-down-barriers-cattle-and-wildlife-compete-in-southern-africa/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/breaking-down-barriers-cattle-and-wildlife-compete-in-southern-africa/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-224523</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A plea to Botswana: Please rethink a “Not Enough Fences” approach (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/a-plea-to-botswana-please-rethink-a-not-enough-fences-approach-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/a-plea-to-botswana-please-rethink-a-not-enough-fences-approach-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Mar 2019 11:46:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Steve Osofsky]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mike Gaworecki]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/03/14111111/3-giraffe_M_Atkinson_1200px-cropped-768x473.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=216527</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Atlantic Forest, Botswana, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Beef, Cattle, Commentary, Conservation, Diseases, Ecotourism, Elephants, Environment, Environmental Policy, Fences, Human-wildlife Conflict, Hunting, Mammals, Migration, Research, Trophy Hunting, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Recent headlines around the world indicate that the government of Botswana is considering significant changes to the country’s approach to wildlife management. I give the government great credit for the transparency it has shown, something which encourages constructive dialogue within Botswana — as well as beyond, given Botswana’s global importance to the future of free-ranging wildlife. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Recent headlines around the world indicate that the government of Botswana is considering significant changes to the country’s approach to wildlife management. I give the government great credit for the transparency it has shown, something which encourages constructive dialogue within Botswana — as well as beyond, given Botswana’s global importance to the future of free-ranging wildlife. Having served as the Government of Botswana’s first Wildlife Veterinary Officer in the early 1990s, I have a first-hand understanding of the realities of human-wildlife conflict and its impacts on Botswana’s rural communities. I thus acknowledge the very real tensions at play, but I nonetheless believe that the new draft plans pose a significant threat to the long-term survival of wildlife in southern Africa, and to the ongoing economic growth that Botswana’s wilderness has been supporting. The proposed policy reflects a deeply worrying lack of recognition of the habitat and migration route requirements that the future of southern Africa’s wildlife fundamentally depends upon. A typical veterinary cordon fence in southern Africa. Boteti Fence, Makgadikgadi National Park, Botswana. Photo Credit: M. Atkinson, AHEAD. A potential re-opening of trophy hunting after a five-year moratorium as well as culling of elephants are certainly complex and emotion-laden issues, but getting less attention is a new push via the Hunting Ban Subcommittee of Cabinet that threatens the very future of Botswana’s wildlife: a call for more fencing, as well as the cutting-off of wildlife migration routes “not beneficial to the country’s conservation efforts.” The over-riding problem is that wildlife migration&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/a-plea-to-botswana-please-rethink-a-not-enough-fences-approach-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-216527</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Nepal tests fencing approach to protect farms and elephants</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/04/nepal-tests-fencing-approach-to-protect-farms-and-elephants/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/04/nepal-tests-fencing-approach-to-protect-farms-and-elephants/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Apr 2017 20:56:52 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Erik Meijaard]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/04/17205615/sri_lanka_160546-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=194834</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia and Nepal]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation Technology, Elephants, Environment, Fences, Human-wildlife Conflict, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When an Elephant Comes Knocking: A new approach to selective elephant fencing is being tested in Nepal]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“We are not angry with the elephant and know that we need to protect it, but we also need to protect ourselves”. This is a brave statement by Kaushala Budha, a Nepali farmer in the Patabhar hamlet, whose house had been nearly destroyed by a raiding elephant the previous night. I had expected more anger and a call for revenge, but no such thing. “If the government would help us, we would pack our bags and leave”, she says. Not too surprising because last night’s raid on her house was the 6th time in a year. Kaushala Budha, in the center, standing in front of her damaged house. Photo Erik Meijaard For the past week I have been working in the Bardiya National Park in western Nepal. The Himalayan Tiger Foundation (NTF) invited me to come and help them think through their program on human-elephant encounters. NTF works here with National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) and WWF-Nepal, advising them on improving park management and ultimately increasing the abundance of key species that occur, like tiger, rhinos, elephants, swamp deer, and a range of other exciting species. This time, we are here to address two issues: Testing a new system of electric fencing, and starting a grassland improvement program to increase palatable grasses to get more deer and antelopes and ultimately more tigers. Human-elephant encounters are costly to the community. A recent study showed that the total yearly elephant damage in the 5,000 ha project area is about US$ 35,000&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/04/nepal-tests-fencing-approach-to-protect-farms-and-elephants/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-194834</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>On the fence about wildlife fencing: new paper outlines research needed to resolve debate</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/06/on-the-fence-about-wildlife-fencing-new-paper-outlines-research-needed-to-resolve-debate/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/06/on-the-fence-about-wildlife-fencing-new-paper-outlines-research-needed-to-resolve-debate/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Jun 2015 23:56:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Neelam Pereira]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2015/06/on-the-fence-about-wildlife-fencing-new-paper-outlines-research-needed-to-resolve-debate</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Uganda]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Cheetahs, Climate Change, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Fences, Giraffes, Green, Lions, Migration, Mongabay.org, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Fencing is used to protect wildlife against poaching and human encroachment, and also to protect people and livestock from wildlife. As a conservation strategy, it has proponents as well as detractors. A recent paper by a team of 45 international researchers in the Journal of Applied Ecology questions the wisdom of erecting wildlife fencing in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Fencing is used to protect wildlife against poaching and human encroachment, and also to protect people and livestock from wildlife. As a conservation strategy, it has proponents as well as detractors. A recent paper by a team of 45 international researchers in the Journal of Applied Ecology questions the wisdom of erecting wildlife fencing in dryland ecosystems. It also seeks to ease decision-making on fencing initiatives by setting a research agenda to answer open questions that will help resolve the debate. In Africa, wildlife fencing expanded rapidly during the 1960s and 1970s as a solution to human-wildlife conflicts. After a lull, the continent is once again witnessing a resurgence of fence building. Rwanda recently put up a 75-mile-long fence around Akagera National Park at a cost of $2.5 million. Uganda plans to fence all its parks, and Malawi may, too. A fence in the Gourma region in Mali. Its purpose is unknown. Photo by Jake Wall. But fences have come under fire for restricting animal movement, particularly in drylands, where enormous animal migrations occur as an adaptation to extreme and variable conditions and, the paper&#8217;s authors write, &#8220;mobility is essential for both wildlife and people.&#8221; Climate change is expected to exacerbate the situation. &#8220;Large-scale fencing can disrupt migration pathways and reduce access to key areas within drylands, such as seasonal foraging areas,&#8221; said lead author Sarah Durant, an ecologist at the Zoological Society of London, in a press release announcing the paper. &#8220;This can lead to severe reductions in migratory&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/06/on-the-fence-about-wildlife-fencing-new-paper-outlines-research-needed-to-resolve-debate/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-62834</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The end of wild Africa?: lions may need fences to survive</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2013/03/the-end-of-wild-africa-lions-may-need-fences-to-survive/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2013/03/the-end-of-wild-africa-lions-may-need-fences-to-survive/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Mar 2013 20:27:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2013/03/the-end-of-wild-africa-lions-may-need-fences-to-survive/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Carnivores, Cats, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Fences, Green, Human-wildlife Conflict, In-situ Conservation, Lions, Mammals, Parks, Predators, Protected Areas, Top Predators, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Lions hang out by a fence in Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Photo by: Luke Hunter. In order for dwindling lion populations to survive in Africa, large-scale fencing projects may be required according to new research in Ecology Letters. Recent estimates have put lion populations down to 15,000-35,000, a massive drop from a population that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Lions hang out by a fence in Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Photo by: Luke Hunter. In order for dwindling lion populations to survive in Africa, large-scale fencing projects may be required according to new research in Ecology Letters. Recent estimates have put lion populations down to 15,000-35,000, a massive drop from a population that was thought to be around 100,000 in 1960. The worsening plight of lions have pushed the researchers to suggest what is likely to be a controversial proposal: fence the top predators in. &#8220;These findings highlight the severity of the lion conservation crisis today and the limited choices we have to ensure a future for the species,&#8221; co-author Luke Hunter the head of the lion program at Panthera, said. &#8220;No one wants to resort to putting any more fences around Africa&#8217;s marvelous wild areas, but without massive and immediate increases in the commitment to lion conservation, we may have little choice.&#8221; While habitat loss and prey decline have heavily impacted lion populations, lion-human conflict&#8212;with human populations rising steadily and lions dropping&#8212;has only exacerbated the already difficult situation. Lions are increasingly killed by spear, poison, or gun as they are viewed as pests that prey on local livestock; in addition lions can be incredibly dangerous to nearby humans. Attacks occur frequently with some evidence showing that lack of prey and human encroachment increases the chance of lion attacks on people. &#8220;Lions are considered so dangerous in South Africa that they can only be re-introduced after management authorities&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2013/03/the-end-of-wild-africa-lions-may-need-fences-to-survive/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-29458</doi>				</item>
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