Assessment of communities’ willingness to accept compensation for wildlife related costs in Kilimanjaro: the case study of Rombo District, Tanzania

This study was conducted in Rombo district. The purpose of the study was to investigate communities’ willingness to accept compensation for wildlife related costs. The emphasis was to examine the magnitude of Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) in the area, elephant mitigation strategies as well as analyze the influence of socio-economic characteristics on communities’ willingness to accept compensation. This study was undertaken in four purposively selected villages namely Witini-Makana, Kidondoni, Keni and Ngoyoni. Primary and secondary data were collected through household interviews, focus group discussions, key informants and literature reviews. HEC was observed to be a serious problem in the study area which resulted to an economic loss 862,050Tshs/respondent/year in terms of losses of crops such as maize, peanut, sunflower, fruits and vegetables. Compensation was suggested to be one of the ways which can reduce conflicts between people and wildlife. However, it was discovered that the government economic based compensation to communities alone cannot address HEC. The mean and median Willingness to accept compensation (WTA) was estimated to be 387,193Tshs/year and 350,000Tshs/year, respectively. Nevertheless, WTA seem to be less than the actual loss per ha because communities associate the crop losses not only with elephants damages but also factors such as bad weather condition, poor farming practices, pests/diseases and the loss of soil fertility. Factors influencing WTA were initial bid (P<0.01), land size (P<0.05), income (P<0.05), and land ownership (P<0.05). Factors such as education level, gender and age were not significant to influence WTA. The study therefore recommends for a review of wildlife policy on issues of compensation for wildlife related damages, adoption of economically sound wildlife mitigation strategies as well as creation of win-win situation between the communities and conservation.