Agricultural and urban land use policies to manage human–wildlife conflicts

Human–wildlife conflicts occur in many residential areas around the world, causing human injuries and outbreaks of zoonotic diseases. Governments have implemented policies, such as extermination, and construction of animal deterrent fences. When wildlife has a high biological value, we face a trade-off between the benefits of wildlife conservation and human safety. This study proposes a new policy of growing crops preferred by wildlife, rather than crops for human consumption, in part of the farmland, thereby attracting wildlife to the converted field and preventing them from entering residential areas. Using an ecosystemurban economics model, we compare multiple policies including the conversion policy in terms of social welfare, and show that, regardless of the wildlife value, the crop conversion policy can be the most efficient, and fences with land use regulation is the second most efficient policy. On the other hand, the commonly-used policy of extermination is not so effective because exterminating wildlife with a high biological value significantly reduces social welfare.