The Uganda Wildlife Authority has recorded a decline of about 34 per cent in human-wildlife conflict incidents, according to its 2025/26 performance report. NTV Uganda reported the figure on Saturday, citing correspondent Benjamin Jumbe. The authority attributes the drop to stronger preventive infrastructure, community surveillance and faster response interventions.
Why it matters
Clashes between people and wild animals have long been counted among the most serious problems facing conservation in Uganda. According to NTV Uganda, these incidents have cost human lives and led to the destruction of crops and property. They have also prompted retaliatory killings of wild animals, which undercuts the goals of conservation itself.
A fall of roughly one-third in recorded cases therefore carries weight on two fronts. For communities living near protected areas, it suggests fewer encounters that put safety and livelihoods at risk. For wildlife, it points to less pressure from retaliation. NTV Uganda frames the shift as a step toward peaceful coexistence between people and wildlife.
The report does not offer a breakdown of the decline by region, species or type of incident, and it does not give absolute incident counts. The 34 per cent figure refers to recorded incidents, as reported by NTV Uganda.
Prevention, surveillance and rapid response
According to NTV Uganda, the wildlife authority is strengthening three areas in particular: preventive infrastructure, community surveillance and rapid response interventions.
Preventive infrastructure generally refers to physical measures intended to keep animals and people apart before a conflict occurs. Community surveillance involves local people in monitoring wildlife movements and flagging risks early. Rapid response interventions are meant to shorten the time between a reported problem and action on the ground.
The reporting does not detail which specific infrastructure projects are involved, how surveillance is organised at community level, or what form the response interventions take. It also does not state how much of the decline can be credited to each measure. What the report does make clear, as summarised by NTV Uganda, is that the authority presents these efforts as the driver behind the lower incident count.
The broader context is that human-wildlife conflict is not a marginal issue in Uganda. NTV Uganda describes it as one of the major challenges facing wildlife conservation in the country, with consequences that run in both directions — harm to people and harm to animals. That framing helps explain why the authority treats the 34 per cent decline as a notable result rather than a routine statistic.
What to watch
Whether the decline holds in the next reporting cycle, and whether the authority releases a more detailed breakdown of incidents by area and species, will show how durable the improvement is.
