Development and Validation of Agricultural Human-Wildlife Conflict Tolerance Scale for Farming Households
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48165/IJEE.2026.623RT03Keywords:
Agricultural human–wildlife conflict, Tolerance scale, Buffer zone, Likert scale, Exploratory factor analysisAbstract
Agriculture–Human–Wildlife Conflict (AHWC) poses a significant threat to the livelihoods of agricultural households in buffer zones of protected areas across India. Measuring farmers’ tolerance toward conflict is essential for designing effective conservation extension practices. The data was collected during March–April 2026 from 200 households residing in the buffer zone of Ranipur Tiger Reserve (RTR), Uttar Pradesh, to develop and validate the Wildlife Tolerance Scale for Buffer Zone Farmers. An initial pool of 50 items was generated and subjected to expert review by nine specialists using Content Validity Ratio (CVR). Items having CVR less than the threshold were removed, resulting in 43 items being tested on the final 200 households. After item-level reliability screening (corrected item–total correlation >0.30 and Cronbach’s alpha >0.7), 18 items were retained for the main study. Retained items were analysed through Exploratory Factor Analysis (Direct Oblimin rotation). This resulted in four factors i.e. Adaptive Coexistence Behaviour, Coexistence Acceptance, Conservation Oriented Tolerance, and Damage and Adaptation Tolerance. Final 18 items have a high internal consistency (α = .836) and explain a total variance of 67.41%. The WTS-BZF will provide extension workers and conservation practitioners with a validated instrument for assessing and enhancing wildlife tolerance among farming communities.
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