Aceh's endangered elephants

Aceh's endangered elephants

By Ron Lilley

MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): The troubled province of Aceh has
some of the largest areas of forest in Sumatra. These, together
with its mountainous topography, have helped to protect Aceh from
the fires that have plagued other provinces.

Aceh's forests contain a wealth of rare wildlife, including,
tigers, rhinos, tapirs and one of the largest surviving
populations of Sumatran elephants.

The Sumatran elephant is a high-profile representative of this
wealth, but rapid human population expansion and encroachment
into forests have resulted in the loss of elephant habitat. As
the resulting human-elephant conflicts escalate, there is a
danger of public opinion increasingly turning against elephants.

For centuries, there was a culture of elephant domestication
in Aceh, where thousands of elephants were captured and trained
for use in regal ceremonies, transportation and warfare.

Although elephants were regularly seen near villages, crop
raiding was minimal and elephants were respected. But this was
when there was still enough land and forest for all. Over time,
this cultural link has been almost completely broken, although a
few traditional skills and beliefs concerning elephants can still
be found among rural Acehnese people, who refer to elephants as
Po Meurah, a term of respect.

Since the 1980s, the logging boom, transmigration and
widespread forest encroachment have seriously fragmented elephant
habitat. With their old migration paths disrupted by gardens and
plantations, elephants have come into increasingly frequent
conflict with humans, destroying their crops and damaging
property. Villagers have been injured and sometimes killed when
they try to scare the elephants away.

In 1987, the government initiated a scheme to catch these
"problem" elephants, and transport them to newly established
elephant training centers, where they could be tamed and trained
for use in logging camps.

One of these centers, near Lhokseumawe, gradually filled up
until there were 29 trained elephants there, together with their
mahouts and a resident vet.

Then, in 1999, the government decided that elephant capture
should officially be stopped. As the Indonesian economy took a
nose-dive, the money designated for the elephant camps slowed to
a trickle.

A decision was made to move the captive elephants away from
Lhokseumawe after two mahouts went missing. The site was
ransacked shortly after the move. Some of the animals were moved
further west to Saree with their Acehnese mahouts. The rest were
transferred to Aras Napal, just south of the provincial border.

To offset maintenance costs, the Aceh elephants are regularly
herded onto trucks and transported as far away as Java, to take
part in "attractions" and processions. Because the trucks are not
purpose-built to carry elephants, there have been many injuries,
and at least one elephant is said to have died as a result of
falling from a truck.

Under siege

Meanwhile, in Saree, the remaining group of elephants and
their mahouts live under near-siege conditions. The neglected
site has no water, and there is no money for medicines, elephant
food or mahout wages. Some farming communities have threatened to
start killing wild elephants, together with their tame
counterparts, if nothing is done to stop the crop raiding.

Over 400 trained elephants are currently being held in
training centers throughout Sumatra and there is no demand for
them or money to support them.

In a village further south, villagers say that elephants began
to raid their crops shortly after clearance and conversion of
forest adjacent to plantations. Companies are already obliged by
law to provide help to local communities in their vicinity and
the palm oil company promised the people a new school and mosque.
To date, this promise has not been fulfilled. Even if given
compensation, the villagers will still be faced with the problem
of marauding elephants every year.

Exploration of alternative solutions, including the
establishment of natural and man-made barriers, is an urgent
priority for them.

Paradoxically, the Aceh conflict may be of some short-term
benefit to the elephants and other wildlife. Many logging areas
and plantations were abandoned as the war escalated and these
areas are returning to jungle. With no human competitors, the
elephants, tigers and other animals, are reclaiming their
previous habitats.

Local villagers claim that, now the elephants have alternative
areas in which to forage, elephant disturbances have decreased.

The Governor of Aceh has supported a moratorium on further
logging and plantation concessions. As the province moves toward
greater autonomy, this provides local decision makers with a
golden opportunity to reassess the status and future use of the
land. Recent flooding in Banda Aceh, and landslides in Nias, have
helped to underline the negative economic impacts of uncontrolled
deforestation.

Conservationists are attempting to protect the elephants, with
the reasoning that, if elephants receive greater protection, then
the forests in which they live will also stand a better chance of
survival.

But time is running out for Sumatra's elephants. The
establishment of "paper parks" will not be enough to guarantee
their survival. Unless a conscious decision is made to protect
their remaining habitat from further encroachment, the
possibility of Indonesia soon losing its wild elephants forever
is very real.

The writer is a technical adviser, Flora and Fauna
International-Conservation of Elephant Landscapes in Aceh
Project.