{"slug": "a-war-between-elephants-and-humans-is-brewing-in-southern-africa", "title": "A 'War' Between Elephants And Humans Is Brewing in Southern Africa", "summary": "Researchers warn that human-elephant conflicts in southern Africa are intensifying due to human population growth, land-use expansion, and climate-driven water deficits, with machine learning models predicting a 33-100% increase in high-risk conflict areas by 2085. The study, led by the University of California, Santa Barbara and involving Namibian researchers, highlights the threat to both elephant conservation and local communities in Namibia, Botswana, Angola, and Zambia.", "body_md": "Which footprint is bigger? An elephant's or a human's?\n\nIt depends on how you measure it.\n\nAs humanity [leaves its mark](https://www.sciencealert.com/african-savanna-elephant-population-dropped-by-a-third-between-2007-and-2014) on more of the African savanna, we are increasingly stepping on the toes of wild elephants.\n\nResearchers in the United States and Namibia are now warning that a 'turf war' is afoot.\n\nIn Namibia, Botswana, and portions of Angola and Zambia, the rapid overhaul of wild land over the past two decades has brought humans and elephants into ever more conflict.\n\nIt's endangering both us and them.\n\nUsing public records, researchers have identified three major factors driving the increase in human-elephant conflicts from 2004 to 2020.\n\nThe growth of human populations and the increase in human land use were the main factors at play, but climate-driven water deficits also played a smaller role.\n\nIf all three of these factors continue unchecked, [machine learning](https://www.sciencealert.com/artificial-intelligence) algorithms predict future battles over land and resources will intensify in number and extent.\n\n\"We find that the area at high risk of human-elephant conflict increases by 33 to 100 percent by 2085,\" the international team [concludes](https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag205?urlappend=%3Futm_source%3Dresearchgate.net%26utm_medium%3Darticle).\n\n\"Aggressive human land-use expansion leads to the most dramatic increases in conflict… \"\n\nThe new information comes at a crucial time in elephant conservation for this region of southern Africa.\n\nJust as populations of the African savanna elephant (* Loxodonta africana*) are finally recovering from\n\n[decades of poaching](https://www.sciencealert.com/the-selective-pressure-of-poaching-has-made-more-elephants-tuskless), their habitats are shrinking.\n\nAfrican savanna elephants are a [keystone species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_species), meaning that on their broad shoulders rests the fate of numerous other animals in the savanna ecosystem.\n\nUnfortunately, however, it seems that our encroaching roads and fences are funneling the megafauna straight to human communities.\n\nIn this unnatural setting, elephants are known to raid crops, injure people, destroy infrastructure, and hurt livestock.\n\nThis can be devastating for local communities, and it has, at times, led to the culling of wild elephants. What's more, it undermines local support for elephant conservation.\n\n\"These trends, alongside the potential of growing climate pressures to further escalate conflict, present critical challenges for resource managers in the region,\" [write](https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag205?urlappend=%3Futm_source%3Dresearchgate.net%26utm_medium%3Darticle) the study authors, led by Evan Patrick from the University of California, Santa Barbara.\n\nThe team includes researchers from the University of Namibia and the nation's Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism.\n\nIn this nation, the most common form of human-elephant conflict is elephant crop raiding.\n\nBecause farming is so important to the region, the study authors [point out](https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag205) that aggressive encounters with elephants \"can result in economic damages that outweigh local benefits from trophy hunting.\"\n\nThe 'war' that is brewing between elephants and humans is heating up in Namibia's Zambezi region in particular.\n\nThis wet landscape is located in the nation's eastern panhandle, and it is very attractive to expanding farming interests.\n\nIt is also a functional corridor between core elephant reserves, where these large creatures are protected by law.\n\nIn some regions, communal land management is self-governed and self-organized. This was intended so that on ancestral lands, the local people hold common property rights over wildlife and tourism operations.\n\nSubsistence farming, however, remains a key livelihood strategy for many of these residents, bringing them head-to-head with elephants.\n\nIn the current study, human-elephant conflicts were assessed across 38 communal conservancies that have rapid population growth, with a combined population of nearly 150,000 people.\n\nUsing this data, future [estimates](https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag205?urlappend=%3Futm_source%3Dresearchgate.net%26utm_medium%3Darticle) consistently projected \"a trend of increasing overlap and discord between elephants and human populations.\"\n\nToday in southern Africa, nearly 300,000 elephants are protected by conservation efforts, but that success story may be at risk.\n\nWithout proactive intervention, the turf war between elephants and humans is projected to rapidly increase through the end of the century, [conclude](https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag205) Patrick and colleagues.\n\nStill, they argue, the fact that land use is the number one factor leading to human-elephant conflict should empower local decision-makers.\n\n**Related: Elephant Species Vanished at a Shocking Rate With The Rise of Modern Humans**\n\nWhen planning for the future, leaving space for elephants could mitigate future damage, support coexistence, the researchers [say](https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag205), and \"protect human livelihoods and at-risk species into the coming decades.\"\n\nIt's not too late to leave some parts of the savanna untrampled. We need to be careful where we step next.\n\nThe study is published in *PNAS Nexus**.*\n\nThis article was fact-checked by [Rebecca Dyer](https://www.sciencealert.com/rebecca-dyer) and edited by [Clare Watson](https://www.sciencealert.com/clare-watson). While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, [please let us know](https://www.sciencealert.com/contact-us).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-war-between-elephants-and-humans-is-brewing-in-southern-africa", "canonical_source": "https://www.sciencealert.com/a-war-between-elephants-and-humans-is-brewing-in-southern-africa", "published_at": "2026-07-10 08:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-10 08:07:43.523185+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["machine-learning"], "entities": ["University of California, Santa Barbara", "University of Namibia", "Namibia", "Botswana", "Angola", "Zambia", "Evan Patrick"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-war-between-elephants-and-humans-is-brewing-in-southern-africa", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-war-between-elephants-and-humans-is-brewing-in-southern-africa.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-war-between-elephants-and-humans-is-brewing-in-southern-africa.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-war-between-elephants-and-humans-is-brewing-in-southern-africa.jsonld"}}