UGANDA: ELEPHANS, HUNTER& HAEDSHIP: HUMAN CONFLICT IN NWOYA DISTRICT

Nestled along the edge of Murchison Falls National Park in northern Uganda, Nwoya District is confronting an increasingly destructive human wildlife conflict. Local farming communities are engaged in a daily struggle with wildlife especially elephants that devastates crops, destroy property, and compromise lives and livelihoods.
These encounters extend beyond agricultural loss to encompass hunger, school dropouts, gender-based violence, and deepening poverty. The persistence of this conflict reveals systemic shortcomings in both wildlife management and rural support systems.

NWOYA DISTRICT-TUESDAY JULY, 22, 2025.
By Okumu Livingstone Langol & Odong Julius Okot

Crop Destruction and Food Insecurity

Nwoya District stands at the epicenter of Uganda’s human–wildlife conflict. As elephants increasingly cross into farmland, they leave behind devastation hunger, lost lives, and shattered dreams.
Addressing this crisis requires more than piecemeal programs or partial fences. A coordinated, community-driven response anchored in fairness, urgency, and dignity is critical to restoring peace, safety, and resilience in Nwoya. Without bold intervention, the people of Nwoya will remain trapped in a cycle of loss and fear, living under the shadow of wildlife rather than in harmony with it.
Crop destruction and food insecurity is order of the day in Nwoya District between January and June 2025 alone over 3,000 acres of food crops were ravaged across key sub-counties in Nwoya District.
According to Odong Julius Okot a researcher based in Nwoya District says in Lii Sub County the community has recorded 787 acres while 632 acres of crops have been destroyed, in Anaka, 652 in Got Apwoyo, 487 in Purongo Sub County.
Adding that and 456 in Koch Goma. Since late 2023, the total destruction is estimated to exceed 5,000 acresmost within 15 km of the Murchison Falls National Park boundary (District Agriculture Officer, Nwoya, 2025). Affected crops include maize, groundnuts, cassava, millet, soybeans, sesame, and pawpawstaples that underpin both subsistence and market-oriented farming. The loss of these crops has triggered widespread food insecurity. Families are now reduced to one meal a day, with some abandoning cultivation altogether out of fear. Many households increasingly depend on casual labor or humanitarian aid (LCIII Chairperson, Lii Sub-county, 2025).
Loss of Life and Property
The toll on human life is equally grim. From October 2023 to December 2024, at least 13 to 15 people were reportedly killed in elephant encountersincluding a pregnant woman and her unborn twins, and a teenage boy trying to protect his maize (UWA Nwoya Incident Reports, 2024). More recently, in July 2025, an 8-year-old boy was killed on route to school.In Lii Sub-county, nightly invasions of up to 100 elephants have resulted in the destruction of an additional 500 hectares (~1,235 acres) of gardens in 2025 alone. These repeated incursions are straining the physical and mental health of residents, many of whom are injured while guarding fields or commuting through high-risk zones (Community Health Officer, Anaka Hospital, 2025).

Drivers and Animal Push Factors

Several factors are fueling the intensification of the conflict. The growing elephant population, driven by conservation successes, is venturing beyond park boundaries in search of food due to degradation of park habitats (Uganda Wildlife Authority UWA, 2024). Concurrently, expanding agriculture into wildlife corridors and overlapping land uses has reduced buffer zones, increasing the frequency and severity of interactions.Local leaders observe that elephants sometimes “follow the people,” attracted by the scent of crops and storage facilities, with raids occurring well beyond the legal buffer zone (LCV Chairperson, Nwoya, 2025).
Indirect Effects: Education, Livelihoods, and Gender-Based Violence

The conflict’s effects ripple through every aspect of community life. Education is severely disrupted: children are withdrawn from school to guard fields, perform labor, or care for siblings while parents tend to scattered farms.
Some girls are pulled out of school and forced into early marriages to reduce household burdens (District Education Office, 2025).As economic strain deepens, incidences of gender-based violence (GBV) are on the rise. Women and girls collecting firewood or fetching water must walk longer distances through unsafe zones, facing heightened risks of physical and sexual violence. Domestic tension over food scarcity also contributes to rising cases of intimate partner violence (District Probation Office, 2025).

Compensation and Stakeholder Ineffectiveness

Despite the Uganda Wildlife Act (2019), which provides for compensation in the event of wildlife-induced harm or death, the affected communities report deep frustration. Compensation processes are mired in bureaucracy requiring post-mortems, national ID copies, and police reports and often fail to yield payouts (Legal Aid Service Providers’ Network [LASPNET], 2024).

Some families are asked for facilitation fees or wait years without response. Of the Shs. 4.2 billion allocated nationally for wildlife revenue sharing in 2024, Nwoya received just Shs 505 million despite bearing the highest burden (Uganda Wildlife Authority, 2024). Meanwhile, only 46.5 km of the planned 68.5 km electric fence has been completed, leaving several hotspots exposed (UWA Nwoya Fencing Report, 2025).
Light and sound deterrents remain the only line of defense in most affected villages. Community perceptions of government and park authorities are dismal. A 2025 survey by the Nwoya Civil Society Coalition found that 65% of residents rated stakeholder responses as “poor” or “very poor.”

Recommendations

To arrest the growing humanitarian crisis, the following actions are urgently recommended:
1. Complete Electric Fencing: Finalize the remaining 22 km of electric fence in Nwoya to shield high-risk communities.
2. Reform Compensation Procedures: Simplify claims, remove oppressive documentation barriers, and prioritize immediate support to families suffering fatalities or property damage.
3. Promote Alternative Livelihoods: Expand non-agricultural income sources such as beekeeping, livestock, or wildlife-compatible projects under the Parish Development Model.
4. Enhance Rapid-Response Teams: Increase ranger deployment, clear roads to conflict zones, and deploy modern deterrents like drones and solar-powered alarm systems.
5. Community Inclusion: Involve local leaders and residents in wildlife management plans, hire community scouts, and fund village-based early warning systems.
6. Strengthen Social Support Services: Provide school feeding programs, psychosocial support, and GBV prevention services for affected households.
7. Fair Revenue Sharing: Increase the share of wildlife revenue to Nwoya District to reflect its exposure and loss, rather than park proximity alone.