Jakarta - Shrinking habitats have led to rising conflicts
between humans and wild elephants on Indonesia's Sumatra island,
with up to 42 people and 100 pachyderms killed in the past five
years, a forestry official said Wednesday.
M Arman Malolongan, a staff expert to the Indonesian forestry
ministry, said the fast habitat destruction combined with intensive
poaching activity has brought on a sharp decline in the population of
wild Sumatra elephants.
'By 2007, the population of the wild elephants in Sumatra is
estimated only 2,800, a drastic drop by 40 per cent from its 1992
population of 5,000,' Malolongan was quoted as saying by the
state-run Antara news agency.
In a meeting attended by local and international experts in the
West Sumatra capital of Padang aimed at developing a conservation
strategy and action plan to save the species, Malolongan said the
Sumatran wild elephants face extinction and their survival strongly
depends on efforts to save the remaining forest in Sumatra.
The Sumatran wild elephant is listed as an endangered species and
protected by law in Indonesia.
Malolongan also said that a comprehensive effort has to be made
in order to reduce the conflicts between humans and wild elephants.
Wild elephants periodically go on rampages through villages
located on or near their trails, destroying hectares of crops and
injuring or killing villagers.
Environmentalists and conservation officials claim that
widespread destruction of elephant habitat through illegal logging
and uncontrolled conversion of forests into oil palm and pulp
plantations has created the intense conflict between man and beast,
as the elephants are forced to feed on the crops that replaced
their natural foods.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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