Coping with HWC
Coping mechanisms range from individualized
self-protection to collective insurance based on
social reciprocity. The former depend heavily
on individual access to land, labor, and capital,
which depend in turn on wealth and political
influence. By contrast, communal coping
mechanisms depend on kinship networks,
traditions of sharing, reciprocity, and joint land
management. The poorest, migrant households
face compounding vulnerability. Without large
landholdings or kin networks they cannot
buffer themselves from wildlife conflict, nor
can they hire additional labor.
Some settings limit the use of social coping
mechanisms (for example, recent migration by
new ethnic groups, incentives for individual
land ownership). Of course a continuum exists
from individual to fully communal, social
coping methods, and affected households may
participate in both.
Because HWC often leads to destruction of
wildlife and wild lands or political clashes over
biodiversity protection, outside groups often
become involved. At that point, proposed
solutions multiply and traditional coping
methods may be forgotten. The risk in such
cases is that traditional coping methods are
often more understandable, sustainable, and
cost-effective for affected households than are
novel solutions advocated by stakeholders who
are less directly affected by HWC. Moreover,
the affected communities are sometimes
wholly disenfranchised if wildlife authorities
and outsiders step in to control HWC.
To avoid the extremes—either traditional,
unregulated control of wildlife, which often