Conflict between elephants and farming communities causes welfare harm to both elephants and humans, requiring integrated coexistence solutions.
Human-elephant conflict generates welfare harm for both species: elephants are killed, injured, or driven from vital habitat, while farming families suffer economic losses that can represent their entire livelihoods. The welfare dimension of elephant conflict is often overlooked in conservation framings that focus on population numbers. Elephants injured by spears, snares, or poison in retaliatory attacks may survive with permanent injury causing chronic pain and mobility impairment. The psychological trauma of being chased, hazed, or attacked likely has lasting consequences for highly intelligent, emotionally complex animals. Conservation solutions that address the human welfare dimension alongside the elephant welfare dimension — compensation schemes, effective deterrents, alternative livelihoods — prove more durable than enforcement-only approaches that ignore the legitimate needs of farming communities.