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  WWF 6 Mar 06
Plan launched to reduce human-elephant conflict in Sumatra

Jakarta, Indonesia: In the wake of a herd of endangered Sumatran elephants being killed and continuing clashes between elephants and residents in central Sumatra, the Indonesian Forest Protection and Nature Conservation Agency (PHKA) and WWF announced plans to immediately begin implementing a long-awaited protocol to reduce human-elephant conflict in Riau province.

PHKA has also called for an immediate stop to the clearing of all natural forests remaining in Riau, site of the ongoing conflict.

The protocol is a conflict management strategy designed to reduce the number of incidences of human-elephant conflict and minimize damage to people and elephants should an incidence occur. It also provides for compensation for elephant damage.

As an immediate first step, PHKA and WWF will assemble a rapid response team of rangers and domesticated elephants to patrol the conflict areas, modelled after WWF's successful "flying squads" used near the new Tesso Nilo National Park. A "flying squad" consists of four rangers with noise and light-making devices, a pick-up truck and trained elephants who drive wild elephants back into the forest whenever they threaten to enter villages. It has proven to be very effective to reduce losses suffered by local communities near Tesso Nilo.

Since it began operating in April 2004, one Tesso Nilo Flying Squad has reduced the losses of a local community from elephant raids from approximately 16 million Rupiah (US$1,740) to around 1 million Rupiah (US$109) per month on average.

"Since the flying squad began operating, I have started to sleep well again," said Salim, owner of a rice field and a small oil palm grove in Lubuk Kembang Bunga village, staging area for Tesso Nilo?s first flying squad. Before he had to stay up all night to guard field and plantation.

"The human-elephant conflict mitigation protocol is very important and has to be implemented immediately to address the escalating conflict evident from the recent cases," said Adi Susmianto, director of Biodiversity Conservation at PHKA. "We expect implementation of the protocol to reduce human-elephant conflict cases, avoid death of humans and elephants, and minimize material losses."

Six elephants were found dead last week in an oil palm plantation at the border of Riau and North Sumatra, apparently poisoned. At least 17 elephants (and as many as 51, according to some media reports) have repeatedly raided Balai Raja village in Rau's Bengkalis District.

Both cases appear to be a direct effect of forest clearing in Riau's Libo Forest, one of the most important of the few remaining retreats of the Sumatran elephant in Central Sumatra. Libo is rapidly being converted into plantations, fields and settlements, often without the necessary licenses. A multinational paper company, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), uses timber cleared in this forest block for its Riau mills.

"All conversion of natural forests has to stop immediately," added Adi. "Conversion of forest into plantations, fields and settlements and rampant illegal logging are threatening some of the most important habitats of our endangered elephants and tigers." Both species have run out of places to go.

Pursued by plantation managers and villagers, Riau's elephant population has been reduced from an estimated 700 to 350 individuals in the last seven years. An emergency meeting will be held to determine how to best contain the herd of 17 elephants, which have destroyed a number of houses and oil palm trees in the past two weeks.

WWF has been working in Riau for six years and helped secure the protection of the last large block of lowland rain forest there, Tesso Nilo, as a national park in 2004. But there are 14 other isolated populations of elephants in Riau living outside areas that are protected from forest conversion and illegal logging.

"Forest conversion is the root cause of the conflict between people and animals, whether it is elephants raiding fields or tigers attacking livestock," said Nazir Foead, director of WWF-Indonesia's Species Programme. "The Balai Raja Duri Wildlife Sanctuary, site of the recent conflict, is an all-too-dramatic example for what is happening in Riau. Forest cover of the sanctuary was about 16,000 hectares when it was declared in 1986. Today, only 260 hectares remain. Fields and settlements have replaced the forest that the elephants once owned."

END NOTES: Results from necropsies done last Thursday of the apparently poisoned elephants are being analysed. The herd of six consisted of three adult females, two adult males (both of which were found with their tusks removed) and one male calf. The herd was found dead in an oil palm plantation in Mahato village, on the border between Riau and North Sumatra Province. Mahato village is about one kilometre from the Mahato Protected Forest, all of which has been converted into settlements and plantations since being declared a protected area in 1994.

Members of Riau BKSDA (Riau Province's Natural Resource Conservation Agency) and WWF's Tesso Nilo Flying Squad, with two shifts of 300 men each of security forces from the nearby Chevron Pacific Indonesia (CPI/Caltex) oil and gas concession, are currently volunteering to contain the 17 lost elephants near a small remaining patch of forest. The teams prevent them from moving toward houses and fields and only allow them to move towards the forest. The herd will have to be driven back to the area's largest forest, Libo, which will require a major military-style operation, options for which will be discussed at an emergency meeting.
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