Elephants Threatened by Plantation Expansion

KOMPAS/SYAHNAN RANGKUTI

Elephants graze in May 2019 in the Minas habitat that spans an oil palm plantation and community farm in Rumbai district, Pekanbaru, Riau. The local elephant population has declined to only 25 animals in the last 15 years, and continues to shrink every year due to human encroachment. The Minas elephants are currently listed as extremely critical and could go extinct without government intervention. The Minas habitat is the third largest elephant habitat in Riau, after Tesso Nilo National Park and the Giam Siak Kecil Wildlife Reserve.

JAMBI, KOMPAS — New expanses of land are being cleared in the natural habitat of the sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus), narrowing the elephants\' migratory routes and foraging space. As a result, human-elephant conflict (HEC) is recurring and growing worse.

In Tebo regency, Jambi province, human-elephant conflict has occurred in the last four days in two locations, in the villages of Sungai Bengkal and Lingkaran Nago in Tebo Ilir district. Maulana, an oil palm plantation owner in Sungai Bengkal, complained that an elephant herd wandered onto his oil palm plantation on Monday and Wednesday. "The trunks of almost 50 of my oil palms have been damaged. Some were uprooted, others were trampled," he said on Thursday (13/6/2019).