 Nature and wildlife are what makes many countries so special. At the same time, animals in a thriving environment are vital to the economy and to people's livelihoods. And that's the dilemma. As population numbers increase and agricultural land expands, how can people and wildlife exist together? In Kenya, for example, the places often affected the most are the rural areas that are so important for wildlife tourism. Animals, particularly elephants, are increasingly sharing the space where pastoralist farmers and their families live. The result is a clash of interests, with wildlife causing injury and physical damage to buildings and to crops. In return, people's anger and frustration leads to elephant deaths. And it's a problem for Sri Lanka too. Human-elephant conflict is a huge socioeconomic issue in Sri Lanka purely because of the human population pressure and the expansion of agricultural lands. Therefore, human-elephant conflict has escalated in the past several years, especially in the past decade. 44 percent of Sri Lanka has elephants and humans occupying the same space outside protected spaces. On average, the past few years, we've been having about 400 elephant mortalities and about 100 human mortalities, which are the highest numbers recorded for conflict globally. This competition for the same space is not going to go away. A solution must be found, which works for humans and for wildlife. That's where private insurance comes in, a scheme that covers the cost of farmers' losses and enables them to get on with their work, while allowing elephants and other animals to seek what they need to survive. Conservation organizations and governments for whom human wildlife conflict is an issue must start to think how they could work with insurance companies to resolve the problem. These companies have specialist knowledge of managing risk-based schemes and are skilled in reducing administrative costs, leveraging technology, making payments efficiently and setting up anti-fraud measures. In Kenya, the government is exploring whether it could hand over its wildlife compensation scheme to the private insurance sector to manage. In Sri Lanka, they are testing the idea too. This approach being piloted in Kenya and Sri Lanka to allow people and animals to thrive in close proximity and for nature to be conserved could be an important way forward. The government wildlife agencies and conservation NGOs in other countries could implement private insurance as well to promote the coexistence of humans and wildlife.