Across Southern Africa, the return of nearly 300,000 elephants from the edge of extinction is meeting a landscape transformed by human need — farms spreading, towns growing, and rains growing scarcer. A new study tracing sixteen years of conflict records in Namibian conservancies finds that without deliberate planning, the friction between people and elephants will deepen through the end of the century, shaped equally by climate and demography. The story is not one of animals turning hostile, but of two expanding worlds pressing against each other with nowhere left to yield.
Climate change, human expansion threaten to intensify elephant conflicts in Southern Africa
Crop raiding by elephants causes economic losses to farmers in Southern Africa, threatening livelihoods in regions where communities depend on agriculture.