Multiple-use zones around protected areas are designed to balance human resource needs with wildlife
conservation, but conflicts between wildlife and people in these areas of co-occurrence (CA) can seriously
undermine their conservation potential. We evaluated this issue by assessing the effects of conflictinduced
mortality in CAs around an inviolate core, on long-term population viability of the endangered,
wide-ranging, and conflict-prone Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). Using a single-sex, age-structured
density-dependent matrix population model to simulate elephant population dynamics over a period
of 500 years, we: (1) assessed the existence of extinction thresholds arising from the interaction of mortality
due to human–elephant conflict (HEC) and habitat degradation, and (2) evaluated whether and to
what extent habitat supplementation by the CA is devalued by detrimental effects of conflict-induced
mortality. We parameterized our model using published survival and fecundity rates. We considered
different scenarios of core to CA configurations, and simulated the population under HEC-induced
mortality rates (HECm) ranging from 0 to 0.1. Population persistence was adversely affected by HECm,
and its detrimental effects were magnified as the proportion of core habitat declined. Under moderate
HECm, small increments in mortality rates necessitated disproportionately large increases in core area
availability to avoid quasi-extinction. Furthermore, benefits of CA supplementation were driven more
by CA quality than size, and these benefits declined as HECm increased. We emphasize the need to minimize
conflict-induced mortality, or to maintain adequate refugia from such anthropogenic threats, to
successfully conserve conflict-prone species in human-dominated landscapes.