Thesis:

Influence of human elephant conflict on socio-economic development of Narok county, Kenya

Narok County is one of the human-wildlife conflict (HWC) hotspots in the country with elephants identified as the most problematic wildlife species. KWS Narok station indicates that out of the 9,299 human wildlife conflict cases reported in the last 10 years, 5,052 (54 per cent) were attributed to elephants. The purpose of study was to establish the influence of Human Elephant Conflict on Socio-Development of the Community living in Narok County Kenya. The Research Objectives were to establish the influence of human elephant conflict on disease transmission and deaths for both human and livestock, to determine the influence of human elephant conflict on Livestock depredation, to assess the Property damage caused by human elephant conflict and to assess the Crop raiding caused by human elephant conflict in Narok County. The Political Ecology Theory was applied to this study. This was a mixed methods study conducted through ethnography study designs for qualitative data and survey design for quantitative data. This study was conducted among the indigenous pastoralist communities living in arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) in Narok. The 384 sample size consisted of community members, Community Land Management Committees, county government staff from the department of livestock, department of agriculture and department of lands. This study employed purposive and convenience sampling techniques to select the sample. The instrument used in this study were interview schedule and questionnaires. Piloting was conducted on 10% of the sample size that was not included in the study. To establish validity, the instruments will be shared to the supervisors for input and to evaluate the relevance of each item in the instrument to the objectives. Reliability of instruments was tested using test re-test technique and Cronbach’s alpha method of 0.75 was used to calculate the internal efficiency. Credibility of the data was tested using data triangulation through multiple analysis while dependability of data was assured through reporting data collection process in details. Qualitative data was analyzed in narrative form while quantitative data was coded and entered in to Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0 to produce both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics were analyzed to find mean, mode and standard deviation while on the other hand inferential statistics was analyzed in form of correlation, regression and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The qualitative data will be grouped according to themes and compiled using narrative analysis technique and Qualitative data if any will be analyzed using descriptive statistics by use of measures of central tendencies. From the research findings and discussions, it was evident that the human elephant conflict has caused problems for the residents of Narok county. the government, forest service and lands management had to take action to reduce the HWC that is in existence.