The Challenge
In many parts of Tanzania, people and wildlife live in close proximity. While this coexistence reflects the country’s extraordinary biodiversity as well as its economy, it also creates serious risks for people and animals alike.
Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) takes many forms. Elephants may trample crops relied upon by subsistence farmers, including Maasai and Meru pastoralist communities. Lions and hyenas sometimes prey on livestock, devastating family livelihoods. In some regions, crocodiles pose lethal risks to villagers who rely on rivers and lakes for daily water access.
These incidents threaten food security, economic stability, and personal safety for rural and Indigenous communities, while also increasing risks to protected wildlife when conflicts lead to retaliatory harm.
Tanzania has implemented various mitigation strategies, including community training programs and deterrent technologies such as beehive fences and chili pepper barriers. But questions remain about how effective these approaches are over time, how communities experience them, and how legal and policy frameworks shape both human behavior and wildlife outcomes.
Why Law and Policy Matter
Many programs exist to help communities reduce conflict with wildlife, including deterrent methods and government response systems. But how these programs are designed, funded, and enforced depends heavily on legal and policy frameworks.
Questions such as how communities are compensated for losses, what authority agencies have to intervene, and how land use and conservation priorities are balanced all shape whether conflict mitigation efforts succeed over the long term. Effective conservation requires not only good science, but also legal systems that support fair, workable solutions for both people and wildlife.
Our Partners and Approach
Conservation Law Center is contributing legal and policy perspectives to interdisciplinary research efforts led by TAWIRI, Tanzania’s national wildlife research agency. Working alongside academic and conservation partners, CLC is helping examine how existing laws and policies influence human–wildlife conflict outcomes and how future policies might better support coexistence.
This work includes analyzing wildlife protection and conflict response policies and laws, conducting comparative research across East African countries, and building partnerships with conservation scientists, government agencies, and community-based organizations.
Reducing human–wildlife conflict is essential to protecting biodiversity and supporting resilient rural communities. Through long-term partnerships and research-driven policy support, Conservation Law Center is working to help strengthen the systems that allow both people and wildlife to thrive.
