Impact of Human–Elephant Conflict Risk Perception on Farmers’ Land Use Efficiency in Yunnan, China

Mengyuan Zhao, Jia Chen, Beimeng Liu and Yi Xie ()
Additional contact information
Mengyuan Zhao: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Jia Chen: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Beimeng Liu: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Yi Xie: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 4, 1-27

Abstract: In countries and regions where Asian elephants are distributed, human–elephant conflict has become an important ecological and socio-economic issue. As one of the major habitats of Asian elephants, China faces severe challenges. Based on the theory of planned behavior and the risk perception theory, this study takes the survey data of 449 smallholder farmers in the Asian elephant distribution areas of Pu’er City, Yunnan Province as samples and uses the Tobit model and the mediating effect model to empirically analyze the impact of human–elephant conflict on farmers’ land use efficiency and its mechanism. The results show the following: (1) The human–elephant conflict risk perception has a significant negative impact on farmers’ land use efficiency. A one-unit increase in risk perception decreases land use efficiency by 250.34 CNY/mu. (2) Social networks positively moderate the negative impact of the human–elephant conflict risk perception on farmers’ land use efficiency, further strengthening the negative impact of risk perception. (3) From the perspective of the mechanism, the human–elephant conflict risk perception increases the likelihood of farmers changing their land use behavior. Farmers with high risk perception tend to reduce agricultural capital investment, which in turn leads to a decline in land use efficiency. In view of this, this paper puts forward suggestions in terms of strengthening ecological monitoring and control, increasing support for agricultural production, and guiding rational social network communication, providing theoretical support and practical guidance for alleviating human–elephant conflict and improving farmers’ land resource use efficiency.

Keywords: human–elephant conflict; risk perception; land use efficiency; agricultural capital input; Tobit model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/4/764/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/4/764/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:4:p:764-:d:1627436

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().