Climate change and anthropogenic factors influence on habitats loss and emerging elephant human conflict in Namibia

• Autor(a) principal: Shiweda, Markus
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/33491
• topic: Desert-dwelling elephants; Remote sensing; Biomass; Home range; Habitat loss; Human-elephant conflict; Namibia

Human societies' growing concern about climate change, adverse effects on global biological systems, and the pace at which damage resolutions is taking place may prove insufficient, however slow, given the speed at which those changes are happening. Since some regions are more vulnerable than others, the need to act quickly before key species are lost is highly recommended. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reclassified in early 2021 the elephants of the African savannah Loxodonta africana and the elephant from the African forest Loxodonta cyclotis as endangered and critically endangered on the Red List. This study highlighted elephants among the species most affected by climate change and anthropogenic factors in the Namib Desert (Namibia), changes that put their survival at risk. Namibia is the driest country in Southern Africa, hence the high possibility of unfavourable impacts on wildlife habitats. Even though Namibia's elephant population has grown over the past three decades, multidimensional factors are potentially affecting the successes of elephant conservation and community-based natural resource management programs in the country. This study monitored, collected, and analyzed, over 3 years, between February and November 2018 to 2020 at fortnight intervals, the movement of elephants (N-29) downstream of the Ugab River Hydrographic Basin and elephants (N-52) of the Upper Ugab River Basin. Births, mortality, animal welfare, reproduction and migration were recorded. An analysis was performed, through interactive tools ArcGIS, QGIS and SPSS, to perceive patterns of movement in space and then time the historical movement, distribution area and patterns of habitat viability change. In addition, remote detection was used using NASA and European’s Space Agency 2000 to 2020 Infrared Multispectral Satellite Imagery of Landsat 7 and 8 the to assess the loss and gain of vegetation and biomass through Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Ultimately, what can be inferred about the drivers of the new hotspots emerging from conflict between humans and elephants in the interior of the country is habitat loss and distribution area changes. Elephants in the study area lost 73% of historical habitats and established a new distribution area, 130.7% compared to the initial one. There was also, associated with this change, a loss of 16.3% of the viable vegetation for foraging in historical habitats, affecting the amount of biomass available to wildlife. These changes add to the need to anticipate and intervene in resource management and restoration of lost habitats.