Herd of elephants run amok in Riau

Herd of elephants run amok in Riau

Haidir Anwar Tanjung, The Jakarta Post, Pekanbaru, Riau

An environmental conflict reached crisis level in Riau as
hundreds of villagers in Rambah Hilir district took refuge after
a herd of wild elephants ran amok at the loss of their habitat.

At least 30 elephants emerged from forested areas in the
district and devastated about 1,000 hectares of oil palm
plantations and ricefields belonging to local people.

"Damage to oil palm plantations and ricefields has inflicted
Rp 3 billion-worth of losses to villagers and local businessmen,"
chief of the local forestry office Sri Hardono told The Jakarta
Post here on Tuesday.

The villagers stayed for three days at the office of the
district head with a supply of food relief from the local
administration.

The local administration, in cooperation with the local office
of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) and the
local unit of the special forestry police, is trying to escort
the herd of wild elephants back to the forests to prevent more
damage to palm oil plantations and farmland in the district.

Sri warned local businessmen and farmers against other attacks
by protected species such as elephants and Sumatran tigers as
thousands of hectares of forested area that had been their
habitat for hundreds of years had been turned into farmland and
oil palm plantations.

"Besides, illegal logging is still rampant and has become
uncontrollable under the era of local autonomy," he said, adding
that four elephants were captured on Monday and were sent to the
elephant training center to be tamed.

Sri called on authorities in the province to control illegal
logging and clearance of forested areas for farmland to return to
an ecological balance between human beings and animals.

"The local administration should tighten up on the issuance of
permits for businesses to open new plantations and factories that
take their raw materials from forests in the province, and take
action against forest looters and sawmills supplying raw
materials from protected forests," he said.

Director of Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Indonesia's
Sumatra-Java region Nazir Foead concurred and said a major part
of forest areas in the province have been converted to farmland
and plantations over the last ten years and the remaining forests
would likely face the same fate unless tree felling in forest
areas were controlled.

"The conflict between humans and wild elephants has a lot to
do with the intensive conversion of forested areas to farmland
and plantations. Only a minority of the forested areas are left
for protected species to live in," he said.

He said his side had proposed that the provincial
administration declare the Tesso Nello forest in the province a
conservation and habitat area for protected animals but the
proposal had met opposition from numerous quarters, as the forest
supplied logs to pulp and rayon factories in the province.