Sumatra fights illegal loggers with elephants

An Indonesian national park uses the 'natural bulldozers' to keep loggers away from its dwindling forests and also to protect endangered wildlife

By Marianne Kearney
STRAITS TIMES INDONESIA BUREAU

JAKARTA - They go where cars and motorbikes dare not venture. Unarmed, they 'terrorise' bands of illegal loggers and help protect endangered wildlife.

Their only fuel - palm fronds.

Indonesia's first elephant patrol, complete with their mahouts, is the latest weapon in Sumatra's Leuser National Park's arsenal to protect its rapidly dwindling pristine forests from the voracious reach of illegal loggers.

The elephants were destined to be either shot by angry villagers for trampling on their farmlands or to 'play' soccer for tourists in Sumatra.

An army of five jumbos was picked to protect their habitat and their own kind.

Unlikely conservationists, they have been effective in pushing illegal loggers out of the island's national park.

The elephants, with their mahouts in tow, can instil fear even in armed and aggressive loggers.

'Illegal loggers are sometimes armed or very aggressive, so if someone arrives with an elephant, people get pretty scared. They're a bit like armoured personnel carriers,' said Mr Marcel de Bune, a representative of the European Union, one of the project's major donors.

'They can just walk over the hut where illegal loggers camp, so then the illegal loggers are forced to leave,' he said, adding that the elephants are 'natural bulldozers'.

Owing to the team's success, another two elephant patrols are being considered, said Mr Mike Griffith, co-director of the Leuser Development Project.

He added that they are particularly good for patrolling lowland forests and can easily cover dense forests that motorbikes, and even four-wheel drive vehicles, would find impossible to enter.

But the downside, Mr Griffith said, was that the patrols cannot protect the entire park as they would be competing with the park's remaining 500 to 600 wild elephants for food and territory.

They patrol an area of 25,000 ha in the 2 million ha park. They are also used to control wild elephants which encroach on farmlands.

Instead of the police 'solving' the problem by shooting the herds which trample on crops and sometimes houses, the army of five chases the wild intruders back into the park.

The park - which is about the same size as Belgium - is the only one in Indonesia housing Sumatran Rhinos, orangutans, tigers and elephants together.

It is under threat from organised timber bosses, according to local conservation groups.

'The military, subordinates in the National Park Service, local police officers, forestry officials and even bupatis (mayors) are involved in illegal logging here,' said Mr Hasrul Junaid, an activist from Skephi, a local conservation group.

Mr Hasrul said stopping illegal logging was difficult as many of the local military commanders were also involved.

Some have even set up their own sawmills as a source of extra funding for their troops.

Around 200,000 ha have been logged since the Leuser conservation project began five years ago, but Mr Griffith said around 400,000 ha had been saved from being turned into palm-oil plantations.