KOTA KINABALU: It used to be that human-elephant conflicts were due to plantation firms and smallholdings encroaching into their forest habitat and disrupting their usual feeding patterns through irresponsibility or lack of foresight.
But several stakeholders in Tawau claim that the elephants encroaching into their plantations are from government-owned areas.
These include from nearby plantations of Benta Wawasan and Sabah Softwood that have seen extensive land clearing, mainly for growing oil palm. This inbuilt migratory need of the elephants is the driving force behind the newly-surfacing complaints of encroachment near Tawau.
Maybe the Government should consider reverting those big chunks of land of State owned companies back to forest from oil palm plantations to solve this problem, they said.
A group of about 100 elephants move between Sabah Softwoods to Samel Estate under Benta Wawasan, Fedelity and Felda and then going back round again but during this migration, they stay longest in Samel Estate because of a small pocket of ravine-bound forests where they find water.
In short, they are moving from estate to estate, not forest to forest. What is the root cause of this elephant plight ?
One renowned conservationist attributed it to the disruption to their migratory dynamics ever since the clear felling of some 250,000 hectares of natural forests in central Sabah which was once the range of these groups of elephants.
They reckon that the escalating current elephant-human conflict in the Tawau hinterland could have been prevented if a proper EIA had been carried out to preserve their original range, prior to clearing such vast chunks of natural forest.
But no amount of crying over spilt milk now can reverse things.
An oil palm estate manager lamented that elephants have been regularly migrating past his estate and plugging out juicy meristems or shoots from even mature trees and leaving the palms stunted or unable to fruit.
In 2016, a worker was killed in one of the plantations after being trampled upon by an elephant while clearing a vegetable farm.
Another manager told Daily Express that the situation is getting worse because as forest reserves got smaller and smaller over the last 20 years, the elephants have been forced to walk through one oil palm estate after another and retreat to only small forest pockets for rest during the day.
Plantation executives told Daily Express there are no less than 15 different groups comprising maybe up to 150 elephants and are helpless as the Sabah Wildlife Conservation Enactment 1997 deems the Bornean Pygmy Elephant a Totally Protected Species.
Sabah Wildlife Department Director Augustine Tuuga has admitted the Department’s hands are tied. Even up to the 1980s, his Department used to have a clear cut choice for any such complaint – shoot them!
But the Wildlife Conservation Enactment 1997 turned the tables completely around and dramatically reversed the situation in favour of the pygmy elephants who have become the passion of the world and nobody can just kill them.
“The elephant encroachment on our lands can be traced back to 2011. Herds of about 100 elephants entered the area and destroyed many palm trees by trampling and uprooting them. The workers drove them away to the nearby forests to avoid any further damage to the plantation,” said one Manager, who wished anonymity.
He said from 2012 to 2015, the encroachment continued especially in the months of June to September.
“This time the elephants encroached further to where the workers” houses were and destroyed their crops such as coconuts and papayas while looking for food.
“Some workers” houses were slightly damaged but no casulaty was reported. Wildlife rangers were called upon to relocate all the elephants.”
He said the encroachments continued in 2016 to 2017 but this time the herd was separated into several groups of between two to four elephants.
The company built several huts at the forest boundary so that more workers can be stationed there to stop the elephants from coming in.
“In 2018, about 18 elephants in a herd encroached again. The newly planted areas at the other side of the main road were damaged by another herd.
Shooing away the elephants is also no simple task both in manner and cost. Between 2013 and 2018 the bill ran up to almost RM400,000. In 2013, it cost RM22,623; 2014 (RM48,729); 2015 (RM55,492); 2016 (RM52,767); 2017 (RM91,300) and 2018 (RM95,729).
As can be noticed, the amount having to be spent to chase the creatures away has been getting more and more costly and may soon run into six figures and cause a big financial dent in the operations. One proposed solution is translocation. But this is a near impossible option in the short run.
Firstly, to move one elephant would cost a least RM36,000. Peninsula Malaysia uses trained elephants to relocate herds but it is very expensive and Sabah does not have that asset. So, who pays, financially saddled Sabah Wildlife Department or plantation owners?
Secondly, is there a new home at all to be found, especially for a big herd like possibly 150 individuals.
Thirdly, elephants are migratory, no matter where one puts them, they will move and likely repeat the same conflict elsewhere.
If this herd of elephants are forced to continue to move from estate to estate where they are not wanted, basically they have no future. Without a really strong targeted macro solution at the highest level by the State Government, plantations alone have no legal clout to bring an effective answer to the conflict.
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