The purpose of this research was to study factors and guidelines for conflict management between wild elephants and residents of Pha Wa subdistrict, Kaeng Hang Maew district, Chanthaburi province. The political, ecological and exploratory research approaches were used in this study. The data were collected from documents, interviews about oral history, in-depth interviews, focus group interviews and observation. The key informants consisted people who suffered from wild elephant problems, elders in the community, as well as stakeholders from government, private and public sectors.
The findings showed the main factors causing the conflicts between wild elephants and residents in Pha Wa subdistrict were: deforestation, road enlargement, wild elephant population growth and climate change. There were 2 guidelines for conflict management between wild elephants and residents in Pha Wa subdistrict. The 4 main immediate recommendations for solutions were: construction of bee hive fences, construction of sling fences to block the wild elephants, ditch digging to stop the wild elephants and consideration of compensation for residents who have been affected by the wild elephants. The 7 long-term guidelines for solutions were: studying the appropriate population size of wild elephants, updating the land use plan, relocating the wild elephants to nearby forests, removing the wild elephants from populated areas, moving the wild elephants across forest complexes, publicizing updated information to residents and organizing working groups to directly solve the problems.
