Understanding farmers' reasons behind mitigation decisions is key in supporting their coexistence with wildlife

1.     Coexistence between
wildlife and farmers can be challenging and can endanger the lives of
both, prompting the provisioning of mitigation methods by governments and
non-governmental organisations (NGOs). However, provision of materials,
demonstration of the effectiveness of methods or willingness to uptake a
method do not predict uptake of methods.
2.     We used Ethnographic
Decision Models to understand how farmers’ work through the decisions of
uptake or non-uptake of methods to mitigate crop consumption by elephants,
and how the government and NGOs can either enable or impede the ability of
farmers to protect themselves and their crops.
3.     While farmers were
motivated to use methods if they received or could afford to buy materials
and they believed in the effectiveness of the methods, they still did not
use them if they considered a method to be dangerous, or issues with
elephants not to be severe enough, or when the supply of materials or
income was not sufficient. Methods were not even considered by farmers if
they lacked awareness or knowledge of the method. Government departments
and NGOs enabled farmers to mitigate elephant crop consumption by
providing opportunities for cash income, and providing materials and
knowledge. Yet, there was disparity between the materials farmers received
and methods they wished to adopt.
4.     One-off inputs of
materials did not result in sustainable use of mitigation methods. We see
an opportunity for governmental departments or NGOs to stimulate logistics
(e.g. roads and retail) to increase availability of mitigation materials
since this promoted farmer autonomy. We also highlight the importance of
empowering farmers by facilitating within community sharing of mitigation
ideas and increasing knowledge about the effectiveness of promising
wildlife conscious farming, as despite promising farmer testimonies, only
a few farmers used these techniques.

This dataset contains the anonimized results from testing 16 Ethnographic
Decision Models, please see supplementary information available through
the publication for the interview questions corresponding to the
datacolumns. Each row represents one respondent, with detailed
characteristics and open answers removed to avoid making it possible to
identify individuals. Please contact the corresponding author if you are
interested in accessing this additional data. Please see the methodology
sections in the publication and Supporting Information for details on how
data was collected. Please note: NA's correspond to the skipping
logic of the interview schedule, please see supplementary information
available through the publication for the interview
questions corresponding to the datacolumns.