Conservation dilemma: law and policy solutions to the conflict between human livelihoods and endangered species – a case study of human-elephant conflict in Thailand

Pengnorapat, Jinnapat 2025. Conservation dilemma: law and policy solutions to the conflict between human livelihoods and endangered species – a case study of human-elephant conflict in Thailand. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Human–elephant conflict (HEC) has evolved into a complex legal, ethical, and governance challenge that directly interrogates the legitimacy, fairness, and adaptability of conservation law. While extensively examined through ecological and development lenses, HEC remains critically underexplored within legal scholarship—particularly in Southeast Asia. Asian elephants, despite their biological, ecological, and cultural importance, receive significantly less attention in legal discourse compared to African elephants, whose regulation has been dominated by ivory-trade and anti-poaching debates. Existing international regimes impose strict species protection but provide no explicit legal recognition of HEC or guidance for navigating conflict situations. Domestic Thai frameworks are likewise fragmented, reactive, and often unable to balance conservation obligations with the acute socioeconomic realities experienced by rural communities. This thesis evaluates how international and Thai legal frameworks shape, constrain, and often fail to resolve HEC. Drawing on the author’s direct experience advising Thailand’s parliamentary Elephant Committees, it identifies key weaknesses in species-protection instruments, structural deficiencies within state liability and compensation pathways, and the near absence of enforceable community rights in high-conflict areas. The study interrogates sensitive and underdeveloped areas of conservation law, including legal flexibility and species delisting, considering how these tools could be responsibly utilised to manage situations where a legally protected endangered species imposes serious harm on human livelihoods. It further assesses the potential of economic incentives, including insurance mechanisms, carbon and biodiversity credits, and PES schemes, to create equitable, financially sustainable models of coexistence across the four major stakeholder groups: the state, local communities, conservation authorities, and the species itself. The thesis also synthesises cross-cutting perspectives from environmental, administrative, and human-rights law to strengthen understanding of HEC as a multidimensional legal problem. Ultimately, it advances a legally grounded and socially equitable framework for HEC governance in Thailand that supports more adaptive and effective conservation law.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > Law
Subjects:	K Law > KZ Law of Nations
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Human–Elephant Conflict (HEC), Human–Wildlife Conflict (HWC), Human–Wildlife Coexistence, Asian Elephant, Wildlife Law, Conservation Law, Environmental Law, Administrative Law, International Legal Framework, Species Protection, Legal Flexibility, Species Delisting, State Liability, Compensation Schemes, Insurance Mechanisms, Community Rights, Environmental Justice, Community-Based Conservation, Carbon Credits, Biodiversity Credits, Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES), Adaptive Management, Policy and Lawmaking Processes, Effective Law, Thailand
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 December 2025
Last Modified:	23 Dec 2025 11:11
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/183428

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