Abstract:
Humanelephant conflict comes from the transformation of forest areas into arable and residential areas for people. Therefore, resources are shared between humans and wild animals, and in most cases results in decreasing food supply for wild elephants especially where villagers use the area for farming for their livelihoods. Communities then attempt to solve the problems through different means. The objective of this research was to study the problem of human-elephant conflict and the impact of wild elephants on the livelihood of Ban Ruam Thai community and the participatory process of Ban Ruam Thai Community, Hat Kham Sub-district, Kui Buri District, Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, together with relevant agencies and organizations in solving the human-elephant conflict in Kui Buri National Park. This research is qualitative research that used semistructured and in-depth interview methods Altogether 33 local farmers and staff of relevant agencies/organizations were interviewed. The data was analyzed by content analysis method. The research found that Humanelephant conflict in the Ban Ruam Thai Community comes from the transformation of forest areas into residential areas for people and plantations. This is the factor encouraging wild elephants to come out of the forest and change their behavior from migrating to find food sources in the forest to living and foraging near plantation areas. The impact on natural capital is the destruction of agricultural products, affecting the financial capital because the destroyed agricultural products are the income of the local farmers. Human capital is also affected both in physical and mental health because local farmers had to protect agricultural products so they have to stay up all night to watch over the plantation. This results in fatigue, exhaustion, paranoia, and anxiety, which in turn, affects community daily life. Collaborative effort in solving the problem started with articipatory processes carried out by the staff of relevant agencies/organizations and the villagers. This enabled steps of engagement as follows: 1) Problem search and data analysis of the impact together with available resources and operational issues, 2) Planning by identifying additional livelihoods like participation in wildlife tourism activities, training and setting rules for local guides and drivers, 3) Operation by jointly setting up and managing Kui Buri wildlife conservation tourism club and tourist services, including assisting the Park in the conservation of natural resources and wildlife, 4) Receiving and sharing benefits, including compensation when working with the agencies, and assistance in the event of a serious incident, and 5) Assessment by sharing information with agencies and listening to comments and feedback for future improvement. The research reveals that the level of community participation is at the real participation level, resulting insocial impact of creating various working groups within the community. Information and knowledge gained from this study may be applied to other cases with similar problems of humans and wild elephants to reduce violence and losses.