About this Research Topic

Background

Human elephant conflict (HEC) is one of the most serious urgent threats to the survival of Asian elephants, as well as a grave social problem for people living alongside them across tropical Asia. The remaining global population of less than 50,000 Asian Elephants have lost over 95% of their historical range, persisting across 13 countries in highly fragmented populations, surrounded by agricultural landscapes and hundreds of millions of people. As elephants increasingly come in to contact with people and their livelihoods and move across spaces, clashes and conflict have become commonplace and are considered the most acute threat to Asian elephant survival.

Human-wildlife conflicts are commonplace when humans and large, potentially dangerous animals, share landscapes. In the coming decades, such human-wildlife conflicts are expected to increase and intensify, particularly as economic development leads to further habitat fragmentation and conservation policies lead to local recoveries of many wildlife populations, hence increasing the potential for contact between people and wildlife. This is particularly true in parts of tropical Asia, the global hotspot of threatened megafauna and one of the most rapidly developing regions in the world.

Human-elephant relationships in Asia are particularly interesting and complex because, while elephants are often considered particularly dangerous and harmful in terms of damage to people and properties, they are also revered in local cultures across the region. This Research Topic focuses on HEC in Asia as a common and growing concern for conservation scientists, communities, and governments in South and South East Asia. The issue will gather the latest studies and insights into the patterns priorities and current thinking about solutions for addressing this threat to the species.

We are interested in submission of different kinds of manuscripts ranging from full research papers to data reports, perspectives and policy briefs (see article types) that explore for example:

• studies into underlying causes for drivers of HEC, including projections of future HEC and coexistence scenarios
• spatial, temporal, geographical and land-use aspects to help understand patterns of HEC, including rigorous quantification of HEC costs to people and elephants
• cultural, social and political insights into conflicts over elephants
• quantitative evaluations of HEC mitigation strategies and interventions
• creative and solution-oriented opinion pieces
• reviews, particularly range-wide, of key aspects of HEC
• emerging & future scenarios

We welcome submissions from social natural scientists from any country and discipline, and encourage where possible contributions by, or in collaboration with, people from Indigenous People and Local Communities. Please contact the guest editors for questions or assistance with co-production.

Please Note:
• Abstracts are not compulsory and failing to submit an abstract will not prevent a full manuscript submission. However, they enable the Guest Editors to perform a preliminary assessment and are therefore highly encouraged.
• Guest Editors will evaluate each abstract and provide feedback to the authors, including recommendation to transfer to a different Research Topic or journal section based on the relevance of the content.
• While submissions of abstracts are encouraged before the deadline, abstracts will be considered for evaluation also after it (the submission link will remain active).
• Abstracts have a maximum word count of 1000.
• Authors can find the full list of article types accepted for this collection here.

NOTE ON FEES : Frontiers is committed to help researchers overcome any financial barriers to publication. In cases where authors do not have the means to pay the full APCs, they can apply for fee support. On submission of your manuscript, please submit a request for fee support (included in your Call for Participation or at this link).

Keywords: Human-wildlife conflict, coexistence, Asian elephant, human elephant conflict

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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