Negative interactions between humans and macaques in several districts in Assam remain poorly documented even though such interactions are increasingly and widely reported. The increasing forest fragmentation resulting in scarcity of food in their natural habitat has pushed substantial populations of rhesus macaque into human habitations for foraging in farmlands and homes. Rising incidents of macaque troops raiding food crops in rural areas and foraging for food in kitchens in some towns call for expeditious implementation of the Human Simian Conflict Mitigation Project in the state. The earmarked budgetary support of Rs 3 crore for the project remained unutilised in the 2025-26 financial year due to the enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct for Assam Assembly elections. The ‘Guidelines for Mitigating Human-Rhesus Macaque Conflict (HRMC)’ published by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, on which the state project is anchored, underscores the importance of carrying out systematic analysis of HRMC mitigation methods to assess their effectiveness to facilitate customisation and adaptation of mitigation measures in different types of conflict situations. In some areas of the state, farmers have been compelled to abandon growing certain crops due to unabated crop raiding by macaque troops. Apart from direct loss of income and livelihood for the farmers, expansion of farm affected by such monkey menace has triggered a larger problem of food security. The increasing dependence of the state on procurement of food items, including seasonal vegetables and fruits from outside pushes retail prices upward and vulnerability of end consumers to price shocks also increases. The loss of livelihood and income has exacerbated the conflict magnitude posing grave threat to primate conservation in the state and, therefore, any further delay in identifying the area-specific causes behind the rise in monkey menace could render the proposed mitigation measures more difficult and costly. The measures initiated by the Forest Department in the state, include formation of teams of frontline staff to scare away the strayed macaque troops to their natural habitats. Such a measure can be effective only when the ecological health of their habitat is restored and food trees that sustain macaque population are abundantly available. Without the restoration of their habitat ecology the scaring away the macaque troops will remain a stop-gap measure as they are compelled to stray into the forest fringe or the nearest human settlement when find that their habitat cannot meet their food requirement. The MoEF&CC guidelines flags HRMC mitigation as “an extremely challenging subject as Rhesus Macaques are very intelligent and learn to adapt to any mitigation method very quickly.” “In recent times, economic, cultural, ecological and several other parameters have all altered the demographic and population parameters, breeding behaviour and troop dynamics of macaques, including early sexual maturity and increased birth rates,” it adds. Integrating such scientific knowledge into the design of the state government’s Human Simian Conflict Mitigation project is crucial to move away from current reactive response mechanism to a long-term, ecologically grounded HRMC mitigation strategy. Identifying the HRMC hotspots, as envisaged in the Guidelines, will be useful in classifying the conflict types according to different mitigation measures, and distinguishing different conflict zones as low or high conflict zones for effective intervention. The MoEFCC guidelines list guarding crops during daytime from vantage points as one of the most effective early warning and deterrent techniques but the requirement of deployment of dedicated guard could be economically burdensome for small and marginal farmers and add to their losses incurred from repeated macaque crop raids. The mitigation strategies for Guwahati primarily must begin with restoration of their habitats on the hills which have been heavily fragmented due to encroachments. As farmers in the rural Assam and residents in urban areas are experiencing negative interaction with macaques, it is important that transparency is maintained while finalising various project components for mitigating the conflict. As key stakeholders in the growing HRMC, participation of people in the conflict hotspots can help the project authorities strengthen experiential learning about the changing dynamics of the conflict and devise pragmatic and science-based interventions for long-term mitigation. The state and central governments providing adequate grants for undertaking scientific research and studies on HRMC situation will go a long way in identifying the drivers behind the growing conflict among human and macaque in different areas of the state. Engaging local universities in these studies can yield dual benefit: the researchers gain experiential learning through direct engagement with affected communities; while their interaction during data collection naturally builds scientific awareness on HRMC, help better understanding of the Human-Simian conflict and ensure cooperation and participation in conflict mitigation projects initiated by the government. It is important that mitigation strategy adopted by the government is comprehensive and is effective for different conflict scenarios and rural-urban ecological settings. Habitat restoration remains the most critical long-term mitigation of HRMC.