Risk perceptions of wildlife by the resident human population in the Iona National Park, southwest Angola

Abstract

Establishing conservation management requires an understanding of local livelihoods, human–wildlife interactions, and community risk perceptions of wildlife, particularly in fragile landscapes with residing human populations. The Iona National Park in Angola is characterized by a harsh but unique arid environment and is home to semi‐nomadic human residents. Due to the prolonged civil war, the park's management only resumed in the early 2000s. To understand the socio‐ecological needs of such systems, we conducted semi‐structured questionnaires with 356 respondents across all villages in the national park. We identified main livelihood strategies in Iona National Park as livestock production of goat and cattle, and cultivation of maize. Estimates of livestock biomass (8.42 kg ha‐1) indicated severe overstocking. Seventeen wild mammal species were reported as threatening livelihoods, of which leopard and cheetah presented the highest risk for cattle; leopard, fox species, and caracal for goats; and porcupine and baboon for crops. The complexity of human–wildlife conflict was highlighted by contrasting perceptions of species abundance, perceived risk, and culprit species. The restoration of arid African landscapes may require the implementation of community‐based natural resource management that is aligned with ecosystem carrying capacity. This study therefore provided new insights and baseline information for effective conservation management, both for the Iona National Park and for areas with a similar socio‐environmental context.