“Let us stop talking about human-wildlife conflict. Some of us live with this reality and we pay a heavy price for sharing space with wildlife.”

The remark was made by a community leader at the 2023 Community-led Conservation Congress in Namibia. It was not framed as a critique of conservation policy so much as a correction to how it is described. The phrase “human-wildlife conflict” appears frequently in reports and strategies, often as a category that can be measured and managed. For those living closest to wildlife, the experience it refers to is less abstract and less contained.

“Have you ever seen how an elephant kills a person?” the same speaker asked. What followed was a detailed account of a fatal encounter during a routine trip to collect firewood: the animal catching up to a woman as she ran, throwing her, and then crushing her body. The description is difficult to read. It is also part of what is being described when conflict is reduced to a term.