Abstract:
This study was conducted in Quthing, Mphaki Community Council on five villages focusing
on the nature of conflict between human activities and biodiversity conservation at Lets’eng-
la-Letsie. The main objectives were to assess the nature of conflict between local communities
and biodiversity conservation; assessing the effect of natural resource management policy
instruments and strategies; identify areas of collaboration and not- collaboration as well as
assessing the effect of conflict on the communities’ livelihoods and biodiversity. A mixed
method approach was used to conduct this study whereby qualitative data was initially
collected through one to one interviews from nine key participants. The results obtained from
them were used to structure and obtain quantitative data from seventy-two individuals on five
villages.
The findings obtained through thematic analysis revealed that conflict in biodiversity
conservation have been negatively affected local communities’ livelihoods and biodiversity
due to lack of information on policies and laws and the presence of ethnic conflict. The
statistical software called Excel was used to determine whether the current biodiversity efforts
had generated income for the communities and whether local communities were actively
involved in the management decisions. The Cronbach’s Alpha test was used to determine the
relationship between the nature of conflict and biodiversity conservation. The results obtained
showed that there is an association between the nature of conflict and biodiversity conservation.
