A landscape framework for human‐elephant coexistence

Abstract Forest elephant crop depredation incidents (CDIs) threaten both villagers' livelihoods and conservation efforts for endangered forest elephants in countries such as Gabon, Africa. We argue that improving crop protection alone will not solve the problem. Rather, CDIs will continue to escalate unless both villagers' and elephants' needs are mutually satisfied so as to create conditions for coexistence. For that reason, we developed a landscape framework for human‐elephant coexistence to support collaborative planning at village and landscape scales by addressing both human and elephant needs. To this end, we interviewed villagers and conservation professionals, and searched the literature to identify actions to mitigate each of five previously identified CDI problem types that were derived from stakeholder interviews. These actions were synthesized to formulate five overarching coexistence strategies and detailed objectives that address unmet human or elephant needs underlying each problem type. The resulting landscape coexistence framework comprises a transferable structure with three goals: supporting elephants, supporting villagers, and differentiating their territories. Coexistence strategies are nested under goals, and objectives under strategies. The accompanying action toolbox organizes the 60 actions under the strategies and objectives, with sources for each action. The framework and toolbox are designed for use in collaborative planning forums to address a broad suite of spatially situated processes that interact to increase CDIs.