JAKARTA - Sumatran elephants (elephas maximus) must now be demanding their "animal rights" as their very survival is being threatened by the continuous shrinking of their habitat by the ever vigorous expansion of oil palm plantations.
A female elephant, found dead and decomposing miserably in Bengkalis, Riau province , last week has become the latest evidence of the fierce struggle between elephants and humans in Sumatra on fighting for their respective survival.
Both sides have justifying rationale for fighting for their survival: elephants need their food just like do the humans only that the means to get it is 180 degrees different. The former want their habitat intact whereas the latter wish all the land converted into oil palm plantation.
"The elephant, estimated to have died since three days ago, was found on Friday by one of the workers of PT Darmaali Jaya Lestari," said B. Rianto, Petani village head in Bengkalis on Saturday of the dead elephant found in a palm oil plantation at Petani village, Mandau district, Bengkalis.
Rianto added that there had been no explanation yet on the causes for the death of the elephant though Bengkalis Nature Resource Conservation Agency (BKSDA) had been notified of the case. Prior to the finding, villagers had complained of the destruction of their oil palm trees by a herd of elephants.
Villagers were terrified to go to the plantation to pick the ripe palm oil fruits, he said, and a few days later the dead body of the elephant was found lying down and decomposing badly on that site. The dead elephant was neglected for days and it emanated foul smell.
At least 18 wild elephants had subsequently been seen roaming the site where the dead elephant lying under the scorching sun in a fashion the intelligent beasts are scientifically often depicted to be. Scientifically, elephants are said to be kinds of animals that would seek revenge for their killed kin.
"The presence of the 18 elephants is just like a gesture for watching their dead mother. But they have made villagers terrified as they keep roaming the site in an encircling movement around the dead elephant and destroying villagers’ plantations," said Rianto.
He expected the Bengkalis BKSDA office to quickly get into motion and bury or take the body of the dead elephant away because the longer the watching group of elephants roaming the area, the bigger the risk for a larger conflict with the villagers.
Palm oil
Oil palm has been cited as the core reason for the latest conflict between elephants and humans in that part of Sumatra. Employees of a private plantation company, PT Darmaali Jaya Lestari, and nearby villagers had complained of the destructive behavior of wild elephants in the area.
"The elephants usually entered the plantation in the evening and during the night. They had apparently been hungry as the forests they used to get food has been dwindling," said the Petani village head.
To date the elephants had destroyed at least 10 hectares of oil palm plantations, mostly those belong to the villagers because the trees are under four year so that the fruits could still be reached by the trunks of the elephants. Whereas the oil palm belonging to the company are over eight years so that the fruits too high for the beasts to reach.
This latest incident was not the first case highlighting the conflict between elephants and humans in the area as similar incidents had broken out in the past. In fact, the findings of dead elephants have also been quite often a sight.
Ironically just a few days before the report on the death of the elephant at Petani village, the Riau-chapter of the World Wide Fund for Nature was calling on the authority to put an end to conflict between humans and elephants by rehabilitating and restoring their habitats at the Balai Raja fauna reserve, Bengkalis district.
WWF-Riau media relations officer, Syamsidar, said that Balai Raja in 1990 covered 16,000 hectares when it was run as a fauna reserve but now it has been much reduced to 120 hectares of secondary forested land. "We keep encouraging the government to rehabilitate the habitats of the wild elephants at Balai Raja," he said last Thursday.
He also said that even with the remaining area, it was still converted into human settlements and palm oil plantations causing the elephants to become marginalized creating conflicts with human beings.
In a latest incident last week, she said, a wild female elephant and her baby had been made paralyzed by poisoning near a human settlement. Those elephants were in weak condition.
Head of Region III of Riau Nature Resource Agency (BKSDA)B. Hutomo said that that the location where the two elephants had been paralyzed was also a passage of the beasts for a long time.
As more people came to live near the area, the beasts might feel disturbed and fought the human beings from time to time, he added. In last week`s incident, the elephants could become dehydrated as humans kept them away from water sources.
Better strategy
Elisabet Maria Prastuti, a researcher of elephants-humans conflict in Sumatra, notes a better strategy is needed to tackle the conflict as the previous ways such as escorts and drive-outs of the big animals have just caused a negative impact on the conservation of the elephants in the wild.
"The conflict has been responsible for the decreasing number of Sumatran elephants and led to a number of local extinctions," said Prastuti who had a study on the conflict in Sekincau, a part of National Park of Bukit Barisan Selatan, Lampung.
Prastuti found that elephant movement was by the river (within a radius of between 0-500m from the river) with fodder supply. Elephants prefer areas with closely packed vegetation mostly in daylight for shelter and are attracted to areas with mineral supply. They like crops that are cultivated by local people, such as rice, cacao, coconut, banana, vegetable and other horticultural crops..
As rice is the elephant’s favorite crop, their movement pattern has been very much influenced by the rice harvesting time. Local custom to provide storage for rainwater in the fields has made the area even more attractive. In short, people provide the major needs of the elephants to survive: fodder, water, and shelter.
On the other hand, deforestation within the elephant home range was going on. The elephant home range is 496 km2, but the remaining forest within the hom range was no more than 27 km2. Thus, when the forest size gets smaller than the carrying capacity requires, conflict is unavoidable.
