Reclaiming the Sumatran Forests
It took a long time and several attempts to come, but a breakthrough in the protection of Sumatran elephant habitat came towards the end of last year. As many as 47 families that had settled within the Gunung Leuser National Park were successfully resettled away from the globally important forests. This is a first major step in reclaiming up to 20,000 hectares of the national park that had been encroached and converted into plantations and settlements. This in turn reduces the pressure on the endangered Sumatran elephant, whose habitat is otherwise being lost at an alarming rate in a country with one of the world’s fastest rates of deforestation.
The Gunung Leuser National Park forms the core of the Leuser Ecosystem in North Sumatra and Aceh Provinces, and part of a World Heritage Site. As well as Sumatran elephants, it is one of only two remaining areas for the Sumatran orangutan, and supports important populations of Sumatran tigers, Sumatran rhinoceroses, and much more besides.
Encroachment on an eastern section of the park began in the mid-1990s when people fled the violent civil war in Aceh moved to North Sumatra and started to settle in the Besitang region of the park. This was tolerated to begin with as a short-term humanitarian solution, until such a time as the displaced families could move to other areas and develop permanent settlements there. However, as the camps of displaced people became more established, local individuals and organised criminal groups took advantage of the situation – and the communities – to exploit the region for logging and plantations. It was argued that this was supporting the displaced communities, and local government officials and police commanders turned a blind eye as a result, even getting involved themselves in some cases.
This encroachment has been having a significant negative impact on the park and its wildlife. The park’s elephants, for example, have been increasingly coming into conflict with people when feeding in the plantations and farmers’ fields elsewhere. Such incidents over the years have led to retribution killing and to the capture and removal of elephants, which have since remained in captivity, if they survived their ordeal.
Throughout Asia, increasing human populations and decreasing forests have created numerous struggles for space between people and elephants. Understanding that both are often the victims, Elephant Family has been working on a number of interventions to reduce conflict between people and elephants. In Indonesia, through our local partner organisation, the Veterinary Society for Sumatran Wildlife Conservation (VESSWIC), the measures also prevent elephants from being captured from the wild and protect the national park and its wildlife, as well as improving the lives of the captive elephants. In particular, we have been supporting a local grassroots initiative in the Sei Lepan community, just to the south of the encroached area, to monitor and overcome the conflict. It was this project in particular that registered the increasingly detrimental impact that the encroachment to the north had been having.
Elephant Family and VESSWIC have also been supporting the local “conservation response units” (CRUs), at the core of which are elephant-mounted patrols. The concept makes the best of a bad situation by using the captive elephants previously taken from the wild, caring for them and training them for various conservation activities. Mahouts (elephant handlers) and their elephants conduct law enforcement patrols along the edge of the national parks, reduce conflict by driving wild elephants back into the parks from crops and plantations, conduct awareness in the local schools and communities, and provide opportunities for tourism. Law enforcement patrols from the CRU at Tangkahan had been monitoring the encroachment to the north and were ultimately involved in the efforts to overcome it.
The first efforts to resettle the families and clear the encroached area were conducted in July 2011 by the park authorities and police forces, with support from the Tangkahan CRU. The poverty-stricken displaced communities were already keen to relocate, but those that have been profiting from the situation organised violent resistance to the initial mission. With a greater police presence, a second attempt began in early December and while there has been further resistance, at least 47 families have been relocated. The Indonesian government (with support from VESSWIC and others) has provided land and basic housing for them – approved by their local leaders – in West Sumatra. The conditions are better in the new area and the resettled families will be able to make a better living. At the same time approximately 4,000 hectares of illegal plantations (predominantly palm oil and rubber) have been reclaimed and cleared. The elephants from the Tangkahan CRU have been helping with the clearing of the plantations by clearing, pushing over, uprooting and pulling away the rubber trees and oil palms, as pictured. With further support from the CRU, efforts have now begun to replant the area with forest species.
There are several hundred people still within the park, supporting illegal plantations and logging activities, but while operations continue to relocate them, the initial efforts described send a clear signal as to the intentions of the authorities and the CRU. Elephant Family and VESSWIC are optimistic of further success, as one of the recognised leaders of those still in the park has already approached park authorities to negotiate for the relocation of more of the families to join the others in West Sumatra.
written by Dan Bucknell on 19th January 12
