The growing interface between elephants and people is a challenge we cannot ignore if we want a future for wild elephants. Securing that future means finding ways for elephants and people to coexist in landscapes under pressure from expanding human populations. Making sure wildlife doesn't lose out in this struggle is the common goal uniting all the conservation partners in Amboseli.

 Understanding that interface from both a human and elephant perspective is important for conservation planning. At the inaugural National Elephant Conference, we presented a paper showing some of the data we gained from deploying satellite tracking collars in 2011, looking at how elephants respond to the human aspects of their landscape.

We deployed five satellite collars on Ida, Lobelia, Maureen, Vicky and Willow in 2011 to show the corridors and dispersal areas elephants use. This map shows those corridors - minor corridors (thin yellow lines) were used by only one female, or only once. Major corridors (fat green lines) were used either more than once, or by more than one female. All of the corridors come directly into the National Park except for one (used by Willow) which linked the Meshanani and Selengei areas. The hatched areas show the dispersal areas (outside the boundaries of the protected area) where our females spent up to 83% of their time in the year. Maureen's range extended into Tanzania, where she travelled up to 28km across the international border on a 38-day journey.

Successful conservation strategies include all the stakeholders, the actors who affect and are affected by those strategies. This isn't just about humans - elephants are stakeholders too, because they act on and respond to conservation plans. Our latest research is working on understanding what risks elephants perceive in living alongside people.

Amboseli elephants depend on an area many times larger than the National Park. Families use the permanent swamps in the Park as a dry season refuge, but range across community lands for much of their time. Each family has a different strategy of where to go, when to move there, and how long to stay. Human presence shapes those strategies, as well as where and when resources are available.

A close up of Ida's home range shows how human settlements shape elephant movements, even in the relative security of Amboseli. The red dots are homesteads (bomas) and the yellow shape is the outline of the area capturing 90% of Ida's location data. This level is used to define a home range, because it ignores unusual locations. The 50% isopleth (shape not shown) is conventionally used to define a core area, where animals spend most of their time. Home ranges are important because they include areas and resources that are not used year-round, but which are nonetheless important for an animal's survival and reproductive success.

Amboseli elephants are important to Amboseli, and to Kenya, but as a relatively undisturbed population, their strategies and behavior are also important to conservationists and managers across Africa. Understanding what Amboseli elephants do can help make informed conservation decisions for populations elsewhere.

Although we capture some of this information from the sightings of elephants in our core study area, we need to understand more about how elephants are using the landscape. Identifying these information gaps shapes our upcoming research strategies. These data support our conservation partners in Amboseli, for example informing the Amboseli Ecosystem Trust which has developed Kenya's first landscape management plan, shortly to be gazetted into law.

 The full report containing these maps has been circulated to our conservation partners, but anyone wishing to obtain a copy can do so by contacting our Nairobi office: [email protected]