Study on Conservation Threats on African elephant (Loxodonta africana, Blumenbach, 1797) in Babile Elephant Sanctuary, Eastern Ethiopia Authors Taye Lemma Geleta Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia Girma Mengesha Addis Zoo Park, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia DOI: https://doi.org/10.47504/IJAGRI.2021.5175 Keywords: African elephant, Babile Elephant Sanctuary, Conservation threats, Eastern Ethiopia, Local communities Abstract The focus of this paper is to study the conservation threats on African elephants in Babile Elephant Sanctuary, Eastern Ethiopia. A simple random sampling method was used to gather data from sampled households. Total of 138 households were selected for interview nearby the study area, and qualitative survey was collected. Focus group discussion and site observations were carried out. According to the result showed, all respondents (100%) were perceived that the population explosion around the sanctuary was increasing for encroaching the land. Following human population, settlement (89.13%), human-elephant conflict (87.7%), and agricultural expansion (87%) through deforestation (84.7%) were the major threats that faced the sanctuary. The result also revealed that livestock grazing, charcoal production, poaching, less community participation, ineffective law enforcement, illegal (uncontrolled) fire, excavation of sands, and fuelwood collection were other discerned threats. Besides, less than (45%) of them were believed as hunting (i.e., other than elephants), lack of management capacity, ineffective stakeholders & partners involvement were brought less effect on present elephant conservation when related with other threats. However, only 22% of respondents were agreed with the existing management system. This might showed why the increased number and types of threats were observed in the sanctuary. Overall, this study disclosed the existence of conservation threats. Based on research results, the following inference is drawn: awareness creation for local communities and other stakeholders along with benefit-sharing for nearby communities around the sanctuary is important to lower the threats then conserve and protect elephant habitat and the values of the sanctuary. Moreover, strengthening the capacity of management and enforcing laws can minimize the intimidation and enhance opportunities. References Anteneh Belayneh (2006). Floristic description and Ethno botanical study of the natural vegetation in Babile Elephant Sanctuary, Ethiopia. M.Sc. Thesis, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. Anteneh Belayneh, Sebsebe Demissew (2011). Diversity and population structure of woody species browsed by elephants in Babile Elephant Sanctuary, eastern Ethiopia: an implication for conservation, Agriculture and Forestry, 3(1), 20-32. Ashenafi, Z.T., T. Coulson, C. Sillero-Zubiri and N. Leader-William (2005). 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Study on Conservation Threats on African elephant (Loxodonta africana, Blumenbach, 1797) in Babile Elephant Sanctuary, Eastern Ethiopia. International Journal of Agriculture, Biology & Environment (e-ISSN 2582-6107) DOI: 10.47504/IJAGRI, 2(4), 24–35. https://doi.org/10.47504/IJAGRI.2021.5175 More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX Issue Vol. 2 No. 4: Oct-Dec-2021 Section Articles License Copyright (c) 2021 Taye Lemma Geleta, Girma Mengesha This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.