The Heat is On: Climate Change Fuels Human-Wildlife Conflicts
Shark attacks on humans are rare, but data from 1950 to 2020 show that the number of unprovoked shark attacks has risen, growing from 50 in the middle of the last century to over 80 five years ago, and hitting 111 ten years ago.
Wildlife attacks on humans used to be rare in Namibia, but events in the past few years show an increase in the problem, with people in 79 communal conservancies reporting 112,165 human-wildlife conflicts between 2001 and 2019, averaging 5,903 reports per year.
Attacks of carnivorous animals on humans used to be rare, but developments since 1950 suggest a change, with documentations by scientists of 5,450 attacks from 12 different species of big cats showing that the number of large carnivore attacks has increased over time.
The apparent increase may be due to rising incidence reporting in the internet era compared with earlier years, but the general feeling exists that human-wildlife conflicts are rising globally, with 73 countries in a survey accepting the fact, particularly in low-income countries (86 percent) and also lower-middle- and upper- middle-income (74 percent and 78 percent respectively,)
Sharks respond to alteration of water temperature, and when it exceeds temperatures of between 15 degrees and 24 degrees Celsius due to climate change, they may shift their population and migration patterns, leading to greater interaction with humans and marine life.
Animals in places like India for instance also respond to changes in the environment from climate change and other factors, with elephants known to migrate across 350 to 500 square kilometers yearly, but are now driven into human-dominated areas by an increasingly fragmented landscape.
Prolonged drought from human-induced climate change makes animals search for water in human settlements, with 180 human-wildlife conflicts recorded in the Zambezi region of Namibia from January to mid-August 2023, compared with 188 cases for 2022, 201 for 2021, and 139 cases in 2020, of which 109 were crop field damage.
Though greater studies are required in this area, evidence abounds that one of the reasons for the rising incidence of human-wildlife conflicts globally is as a result of the proximity of humans and animals due to climate change.
In India, elephants kill more than 100 people each year, while over 200 people died in Kenya between 2010 and 2017, and with climate change expected to accelerate through events like droughts, more conflicts could be envisaged between humans and elephants.
Globally, sharks carried out a total of 47 confirmed unprovoked cases against humans in 2024, with seven fatalities, but with warmer temperatures altering their environment as time goes by, sharks could come close to humans for survival, triggering conflicts.
In Zimbabwe, authorities recorded 311 animal attacks on people in 2019, up from 195 in the year before, but with climate change-induced drought getting worse in the next few years, conflict between animals and humans could escalate.
Drought could affect over three quarters of the world's population by 2050, with an estimated 4.8 to 5.7 billion people to live in areas with water shortages for at least one month in a year, possibly triggering increased conflicts between humans and animals, as they compete for scarce resources.
Different approaches need to be implemented to prevent the escalation of human-wildlife conflicts in the near and long term, such as sustainable land use practices, support for conservation measures, and the restoration and protection of habitats.
What to Eat
Vegan food from Namibia, Credit, Vegan Physicist