Guarding crops from monkey troops: farmer-monkey interaction near a nature reserve in Guangxi, China

Abstract

Crop damage by wildlife can cause significant economic loss and non-human primates can be nuisances to farmers following their ingenuity in crop-raiding strategies. There is an emerging research interest on interspecies interaction in human-wildlife conflicts, following the growing field of merging human-animal barrier, at least analytically. We collected qualitative data from two villages experiencing macaque crop damage near a national nature reserve in Guangxi, China, to understand how humans and macaques interact in a crop damage scenario and how the interaction evolves in time. We find the mutually interactive processes taken place between farmers and monkeys as they try to learn and adjust to the counterparts’ daily activities and raiding/guarding strategies. Their interaction is also mediated by materiality: the crops, the topography of the landscapes and managerial tools. In recent years, socioecological changes such as afforestation, hunting bans and out migration have enabled macaques to grow their population and more boldly pursue for their preference of crops. Our finding reveals the role of non-human animal agency, conservation, and other social processes in shaping human-wildlife relations, as well as the potential of using more-than-human perspective and ethnographic methods in understanding human-wildlife relations. It further implies the need of enhancing farmers’ knowing and adjustment, as well as encouraging human-wildlife cohabitation.