Tools
ToolsCosta, Hugo C. M., Peres, Carlos A., Heming, Neander M., da Silva, Dionei José, dos Santos-Filho, Manoel, Campos-Silva, João Vitor and Storck-Tonon, Danielle (2026) Crop-raiding by a forest ungulate in Earth's largest tropical agricultural frontier potentially costs local farmers ~US$700 m and disproportionately penalizes smallholders. Journal of Applied Ecology, 63 (1). ISSN 0021-8901
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
Agricultural expansion for global commodity production is a major driver of tropical deforestation. This widespread land-use change isolates wildlife into human-dominated landscapes, intensifying conflicts over space and resources. Crop raiding is one of the most severe and widespread forms of human–wildlife conflict (HWC), undermining rural livelihoods and reducing support for the conservation of large vertebrates, especially those incurring high local costs despite high global conservation value. The white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), a large-herd-living tropical ungulate and key ecological engineer, has been extirpated from much of its former range. Yet, it is considered a pest in Mato Grosso, the leading Brazilian state in soybean and maize production. We used GPS tracking, landholder interviews and landscape variables to model crop-raiding risk across ~28,000 rural properties in Mato Grosso. The total suitable conflict area covers 849,009 ha, potentially causing annual economic losses of US$664 million. Forest cover and connectivity were the most important predictors of conflict risk. Smallholders manage proportionally more vulnerable land than largeholders. Addressing conflict effectively requires moving beyond indiscriminate retaliatory culling, which threatens long-term population viability. Population regulation, compensatory payments promoting coexistence and deflection of white-lipped peccary herd movements are feasible conflict mitigation measures that should replace currently excessive retaliatory killing. Synthesis and applications. Our spatially explicit modelling identifies landscape-scale hotspots of crop raiding by a key Neotropical forest ungulate in the southern Amazon. By predicting where conflict is most likely to occur, this approach provides actionable information for landholders and decision-makers to proactively plan crop placement, target preventive measures and implement landscape management strategies that deflect white-lipped peccary movements away from vulnerable fields. These applications support coexistence-based management, reduce reliance on indiscriminate retaliatory culling and contribute to the long-term conservation of this ecologically important and vulnerable species in rapidly expanding monocultural landscapes.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Data Availability Statement: Data are available at the Zenodo Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18163417 (Costa, 2026). |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | amazonia,commodity production,fragmentation,habitat amount,human-wildlife conflict,maxent,species distribution modelling,ecology,sdg 15 - life on land ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2303 |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Biology Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Apr 2026 15:43 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Apr 2026 15:43 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102766 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/1365-2664.70274 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |