Climate change and anthropogenic factors’ impact on habitat loss is a growing problem that is influencing unsustainable wildlife local-population home range shifts and triggering an increase in human–wildlife conflict (HWC). Yet, keystone species involved in HWC such as elephants play a vital role in nature-based ecosystem services and have important economic and cultural value to the people that are living with them. To understand how climate change and anthropogenic factors affect habitat loss and elephants’ home range shift, the movement of Namib desert-dwelling elephants was monitored and observed in the Ugab River basin between February 2018 and November 2020 at fortnight intervals. There are 87 elephants in the Ugab River basin that are distributed into two subpopulations: desert-dwelling elephants (N = 28) and semi-desert-dwelling elephants (N = 59). To achieve the objective of the study, land cover change, elephant movement, rainfall, and temperature data were analysed using ArcGIS spatial and statistical tools, such as image analysis, optimised hot spot analysis (OHSA), and cost distance analysis, to distinguish habitat vegetation changes and home range shifts and how these link to emerging human–elephant conflict (HEC) hot spots. Human farming activities, poor rainfall, and frequent droughts are responsible for the loss of habitat of around 73.0% in the lower catchment of the ephemeral river streams; therefore, the urgency of conserving and sustaining these habitats and desert-dwelling elephants is discussed here.

The world is experiencing incredible biodiversity loss, including the decline of iconic species, such as elephants. The species faces an uncertain future due to habitat loss, human-elephant conflict, poaching and climate change, reminding us of the urgency of acting on a local and global scale. Art has historically been a powerful medium for expressing ideas and emotions, fostering deep connections for people. Therefore, this paper explores the impact of the sharing of scientific content through dance on conservation values in young people. Understanding conservation needs and analyzing what drives people to gain an emotional affinity towards the environment has shown the potential to support and innovate traditional education. The work presented here uses a dance piece, performed through a choreographic process with dance students, to educate an audience about the importance and behavior of the African savannah elephant and the threats to its survival. Our findings indicated differences between the level of knowledge and opinion of the audience throughout the different phases of the methodology explored here, revealing that dance (and artistic) education can provide knowledge and stimulate more empathy for species conservation.