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.