INTRODUCTION

The 253-km2 Shimba Hills National Reserve in the Coast Province of Kenya serves as a powerful example of both the value of protected areas for conserving Africa's elephants and the complexities of human–animal conflicts inherent in such an approach. Boasting one of the richest forests in terms of biodiversity in Kenya, containing endemic, threatened and endangered flora and fauna, and serving as the primary water source in the area, Shimba Hills is one of the most important representatives of the remnant humid tropical forests in the East African coastal region. The biodiversity of the Shimba Hills ecosystem, however, is threatened with impoverishment, and the 600-plus elephants currently confined to the reserve contribute to its deteriorating condition. The vast majority of people that live near the reserve teeter in the economic balance, relying on small-scale agriculture for their livelihood. Destruction of their crops by animals catapults them into economic deprivation, and sometimes elephants directly threaten their lives.

Soaring human populations in the area combined with cultural changes in resource use and the politicization of land-tenure issues in the Kenyan state have led to more land settlement and cultivation, thus restricting elephant migrations and increasing the frequency of human–elephant conflicts. The completion of an electric fence in 1999 that virtually surrounds all of Shimba Hills National Reserve, and the creation and fenced annexation of the community-owned Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary in the same year, have reduced the extent of human–elephant conflict.