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Sumatran tiger called Bonita was thankfully caught alive in Indragiri Hilir regency, Riau, after being hunted for more than 100 days. Her capture on April 20 ended the drama of a long search in deep jungle and lush oil palm plantations.

The four-year-old tiger had been straying into neighborhoods, scaring residents for months. She is suspected of killing two humans in Pelangiran district in January. Bonita is being cared for at the rehabilitation center in Dharmasraya, West Sumatra.

The prolonged clash with Bonita may be just the tip of the iceberg of human-animal issues in Indonesia.

Our relationship with animals is as old as human history itself. Now we rarely hunt animals as in the prehistoric days, but we keep eating them. The vast majority of the world’s population eats meat.

The consequences of this conflict are not only the damage to the environment, but also the lethal impact on both sides because humans and animals kill each other.

As human populations rapidly grow, the global demand for food rises, and food production must double. The need for land in the homes of thousands of species of animals leads humans to threaten wildlife.

We already eat animals as food, now we are occupying their habitats inch by inch. Humans and animals must live in harmony, to sustain our continuous existence. Mitigation strategies are important in resolving human-animal conflicts. We need effective and locally adapted solutions.

First, proper planning on land use is urgent. Competition between humans and animals for land would not occur if every land expansion was well planned.

Pressure on wildlife areas comes from human settlements, agricultural land and other uses. Land-expansion planning should not overlap and clash with wildlife. To ensure a balance among competing uses requires the efficient allocation of land resources, taking into account the central needs of animals.

One of the main rules in land-use planning is protecting natural resources and biodiversity; both conservation needs and development objectives must be considered. This balance could be achieved by embracing input from cross-disciplinary fields, from conservation biology to sociology, to enable the best blueprint possible.

Land-use planning should also consider the balance within wildlife. However land utilization or forest conversion should maintain the remaining forest to ensure a stable food cycle. Tigers and other predators should have enough prey as a source of food.

When the ecosystem and the food cycles of wildlife become unstable, human-animal conflicts will occur. With their survival instinct predators in particular will expand their area to find prey wherever possible. When tigers appear in human-occupied land they are just reclaiming their territory.

The intrusion of humans into animal territories is largely caused by a lack of conservation awareness. Humans and their antagonism and neglect of wildlife are the main causes of human-animal conflict.

Second, buffer zones between wildlife and human-managed areas are also needed. Installing a fence around vast wildlife areas would be tough, so natural buffer zones are more reasonable and thus a common approach to protecting conservation areas.

A buffer zone can be developed as a broad block of land surrounding a wildlife area to maintain wildlife stability and preventing animals from entering human-managed areas.

Buffer-zone development depends on the characteristics of the wildlife. In certain circumstances, crops can be planted in the buffer zone. National parks in some countries in Africa have large tea plantations as buffer crops. Ideally, a buffer zone should also prevent humans crossing and entering the wildlife area.

Thus legally protected buffer zones should become strong frontiers for wildlife, enforced against all including large companies and surrounding communities —which also means strong enforcement against slash-and-burn agriculture.

Third, local communities must be empowered in conservation. It is the surrounding communities who face a huge challenge living side-by-side with wildlife, from which they must also be protected.

Before Bonita killed two villagers, another tiger found in a settlement was killed by angry residents in North Sumatra. Such incidents always start with humans and animals crossing into each other’s territories and a lack of community awareness.

Humans no longer need wild animals for food and vice versa, animals are not generally prone to see humans as prey.

We need to appreciate the team in Riau who did not kill Bonita. In human-animal conflicts the priority is to save lives, both humans and animals. Community empowerment should prioritize minimizing contact with animals and then what people should do when contact occurs.

Bonita sent a clear reminder to us that we share this planet with animals. We need to live in harmony and respect each other. Human-animal conflicts are mostly caused by humans, many of whom still regard wildlife as a threat.
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