Saving Sumatra's elephants
Are the days when Sumatra's wild elephants can freely roam about over? One cannot help but foresee such a picture after learning of a proposal from Transmigration Minister Siswono Yudohusodo a few days back that culling the elephants' numbers is the only way of controlling the Sumatran pachyderm population.
Siswono's plan includes shooting elephants with tusks longer than 30 centimeters. He hopes his scheme will be able to achieve a balance between the number of animals -- there are about 4,000 elephants roaming 44 areas in Sumatra -- and their dwindling habitat, mostly caused by development of the region.
As anyone can surmise, the battle between Sumatra's wild elephants and development has been a one-sided affair. For decades, population growth, the expansion of agriculture and livestock raising, pollution, and the building of cities and roads have diminished the quantity and quality of natural habitats worldwide.
The case of Sumatra's wild elephants is no exception. They are not only considered an obstruction to development but also a pest: Some 14 people were reportedly killed by rampaging elephants in Lampung province between 1989 and 1993. Over the last three years, more than 850,000 hectares of plantations in Riau province were ransacked by the animals. Farmers, plantation owners and forest concession holders have for years cried out for revenge.
And Minister Siswono's culling plan seems to be the government's likely solution. But, perhaps, to prevent an even greater outcry from environmentalists who oppose the proposal, yesterday Minister of Forestry Djamaloedin Soeryohadikoesoemo announced a softer policy for handling the Sumatran elephants. While it outlines a plan for elephant utilization for tourism and plantations, it says that "overpopulation of elephants in certain regions could be solved by using population control through conservation procedures under the auspices of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)."
Although Djamaloedin's statement did not mention the specific issue of "overpopulation", it hinted that some 700 elephants now live outside their natural habitats in Lampung province and thus one can guess that they would be the first group to be culled.
We question whether culling and population control are the only solutions to solving the problem? In this age of "development" it is understandable for people and government decision-makers to put economic considerations above everything else. Since agriculture, plantations and roads seem to have a greater economic value then the conservation of nature, a case can be made for sacrificing wild elephants in the name of "progress."
But one should not forget that admirable pledge stipulated in the World Charter for Nature, adopted by the United Nations in 1982. It says, among other things, that "humankind is part of nature, that every form of life is unique and warrants respect regardless of its worth to human beings, and that lasting benefits from nature depend upon the maintenance of essential ecological processes and life-support systems and upon the diversity of life forms."
On top of that, people need to recognize that the reasons for the existence of species and ecosystems may be more subtle and inscrutable than simply supporting the economic desires of the current generation of consumers.
Besides, it has been proven lately that biological resources have vast economic potential. So one should not underestimate the fact that preserving Sumatra's wild elephants, and hence also Sumatra's rainforests, may have a future economic value that is far greater than merely as lots to be given away for the resettlement of people.
In other words, while we do not know for sure what the actual price of our biological resources is, we should not be too hasty in making decisions on the basis of our current needs alone. Otherwise, one day when the dust finally settles, we could be left with nothing but our greed.