Harmonizing Rights: Community-Based Governance For Human-Wildlife Conflict In Assam

Human-wildlife conflict in Assam is a harsh reality where humans and nature are constantly clashing. On one hand, there's the right to life and livelihood, and on the other, there's the burden of environmental conservation, which traditional legal systems often fail to address effectively.The aim of this socio-legal analysis is to move beyond a conservation-centric approach and toward an interdisciplinary framework that recognizes the wellbeing of humans and wildlife equally. In Assam's ground reality, farming communities and elephant corridors often overlap, and this overlap gives rise to tragic conflict.Both humans and elephants are vulnerable in this conflict. Relying solely on laws and conservation policies is not enough to understand the true scale of this crisis; its socio-economic, cultural, and ethical dimensions must also be understood and incorporated.This study uses socio-legal methodology where wildlife protection laws are understood in their social context. Research shows that compensation systems do not solve systemic problems. Combining traditional ecological knowledge of indigenous communities of Northeast India with successful conservation models from Kenya, Namibia and Costa Rica, this study suggests that laws should be designed to recognise the rights of both humans and wildlife.The study proposes that legal reforms can transform human-wildlife conflict from confrontation to cooperation. The final conclusion is that no sustainable solution is possible unless local communities are made equal stakeholders in conservation and their rights to live, earn and respect are equally protected along with wildlife welfare.