Elephants, villagers both losers in Sumatra deforestation

Aug 29, 2007, 8:37 GMT

Jakarta - Shrinking habitats have led to rising conflicts between humans and wild elephants on Indonesia's Sumatra island, with up to 42 people and 100 pachyderms killed in the past five years, a forestry official said Wednesday.

M Arman Malolongan, a staff expert to the Indonesian forestry ministry, said the fast habitat destruction combined with intensive poaching activity has brought on a sharp decline in the population of wild Sumatra elephants.

'By 2007, the population of the wild elephants in Sumatra is estimated only 2,800, a drastic drop by 40 per cent from its 1992 population of 5,000,' Malolongan was quoted as saying by the state-run Antara news agency.

In a meeting attended by local and international experts in the West Sumatra capital of Padang aimed at developing a conservation strategy and action plan to save the species, Malolongan said the Sumatran wild elephants face extinction and their survival strongly depends on efforts to save the remaining forest in Sumatra.

The Sumatran wild elephant is listed as an endangered species and protected by law in Indonesia.

Malolongan also said that a comprehensive effort has to be made in order to reduce the conflicts between humans and wild elephants.

Wild elephants periodically go on rampages through villages located on or near their trails, destroying hectares of crops and injuring or killing villagers.

Environmentalists and conservation officials claim that widespread destruction of elephant habitat through illegal logging and uncontrolled conversion of forests into oil palm and pulp plantations has created the intense conflict between man and beast, as the elephants are forced to feed on the crops that replaced their natural foods.