Elephant problem is human problem: Forestry official

Elephant problem is human problem: Forestry official

By T. Simawati Gunawan

PEKANBARU, Riau (JP): A senior official of the Forestry
Ministry is calling for a coordinated effort by government
agencies and private institutions to contain the problems of
recurrent raids on villages in Sumatra by wild elephants.

"The elephant problem is not the problem of the elephants,"
said Widodo S. Ramono of the Directorate General of Forest
Protection and Nature Conservation.

"It is the problem of human beings, and we have to work
together to solve it," Widodo said on Thursday during a meeting
with officials from the provincial forestry office and the
environmental agency of the Riau provincial government.

The recurrent attacks by wild elephants on rubber and palm oil
plantations in Riau has racked up total material losses amounting
to Rp 14.3 billion ($6.9 million). This amount excludes the
material losses inflicted on villagers.

Widodo said that unless an integrated action is taken, the
marauding elephants would cause greater losses, possibly even
injure humans.

The meeting was held following a trip to several plantation
estates and a transmigration location which had been stormed by
the elephants.

Widodo said the government, too, should consider the
ecological aspects in its decision to set areas for
transmigration, agriculture, mining or other activities.

He said there must be a change in the government's policy to
enable the implementation of the sustainable development
principles.

"We should consider not only the economic benefits but the
ecological benefit as well. Development should be advantageous
for the people, not for the conglomerates," he said.

Alternatives

He said there are two practical alternatives in dealing with
the wild elephants now roaming outside their natural habitat:
simply rounding them up or herding them to designated national
parks by placing corridor barriers along the way.

Samuel Panggabean, head of the Riau Office for Conservation of
Natural Resources, said several plantation estate companies have
agreed to lend a hand in the efforts to cope with the elephant
problems. But others refused as the elephants were not rampaging
their plantations.

In the past four years about 200 elephants which roamed
outside their habitats attacked more than 11,800 hectares of
rubber and palm oil plantations in Riau, according to Suparto
Broto from the plantation agency of the forestry office.

The elephants also stormed villages and fields in
transmigration sites, but there were no records of financial
losses suffered by the people.

Ratman Tasmin, who represented the provincial forestry office,
told the meeting that there had been no casualties in any of the
elephant raids.

A local newspaper earlier reported that a farmer was killed by
a stampede of elephants which raided his field last week but the
report was never officially confirmed.

Besides Riau, Bengkulu and Lampung in southern Sumatra, and
Aceh have reported similar problems in dealing with elephants and
some of the raids have been fatal.

Official figures said that 14 people have been killed during
such raids in the last five years.

Riau is home to some 1,600 elephants. Two hundred of them are
straying outside their designated habitats.

Officials said the size of Sumatra elephant population
continues to increase but their natural habitat has been
shrinking because more and more land and forest is being
converted for residential or commercial purposes.