| dc.description.abstract | The study was carried out to assess the Effects of human wildlife conflicts to tourism around Queen Elizabeth national park. The study was guided by the objectives to: document the human wildlife conflicts around Queen Elizabeth National Park, assess causes of human wildlife conflicts around Queen Elizabeth national park, assess the real and perceived effects of human wildlife conflicts around Queen Elizabeth National Park, and examine the different strategies that can be used to mitigate the human wildlife conflicts in Queen Elizabeth National Park. A sample size of 60 respondents was obtained and included 50 local community members, comprised of households around Queen Elizabeth National Park, and 5 local community leaders and 5 officials Uganda Wildlife Authority. The Uganda wildlife Authority were selected purposively, while samples from local communities were selected randomly. The data was collected using questionnaires and key informant interviews. The data was analyzed quantitatively using SPSS and qualitatively using thematic analysis. Data analysis revealed that human wildlife conflict around the park is through crop raiding, livestock predation and human attack due to the action of wildlife. Animals such as elephants, lions, buffaloes and baboons were the most involved in escalating human wildlife conflicts. The major cause of Human wildlife conflicts were identified as habitat loss, encroachment, agriculture expansion, poaching and bush mean. These conflicts have resulted into crop damage, death of humans and livestock, migrations of communities from their original homelands and increased tension between local communities. Further results indicated that human wildlife conflicts has resulted into the killing of the wild animals which has reduced the wildlife in the park and created negative attitude of people towards tourism development as well as threating the life of tourists. The human wildlife conflicts can be mitigated through compensation of damages caused by animals, fences/ditches/trenches to discourage animals and Uganda Wildlife Authority should employ more rangers to protect the animals from attaching the animals. From the results the study recommends that government of should properly and effectively land use plan, with various land uses specified and clearly demarcated to keep settlements and other development projects away from wildlife areas and fencing of game parks as well as sensitization of the local people about the importance of the park resources | en_US |
