Beehives come to the rescue

Way to tackle elephant-human conflict in Kenya.

"I used to hate elephants a lot," Kenyan farmer Charity Mwangome says, pausing from her work under the shade of a baobab tree. The bees humming in the background are part of the reason why her hatred has dimmed.

The diminutive 58-year-old said rapacious elephants would often destroy months of work in her farmland that sits between two parts of Kenya's world-renowned Tsavo National Park.

Beloved by tourists who contribute around 10% of Kenya's GDP, the animals are loathed by most local farmers, who form the backbone of the nation's economy.

Elephant conservation has been a roaring success: numbers in Tsavo rose from about 6,000 in the mid-1990s to almost 15,000 elephants in 2021, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

But the human population also expanded, encroaching on grazing and migration routes for the herds. Resulting clashes are becoming the number one cause of elephant deaths, says KWS.

Refused compensation when she lost her crops, Mwangome admits she was mad with the conservationists.