The Lower Kinabatangan is one of the four most important ranges for the Bornean elephant.
However, growth in the elephant population (which has doubled to about 200 over the past twelve years) and a rapid reduction in available habitat due to expansion of the agricultural sector have resulted in increasing conflicts between elephants and people.
Oil palm plantations are often adjacent to wildlife habitat and are frequently raided by elephants, causing severe economical losses to the planters, who defend themselves by establishing electric fences and trenches, and even killing the elephants. Today, the only routes available for the elephants pass through villages and the fields of local farmers, who bear the brunt of the conflict. Traditional respect for elephants in this area is being sorely tested. 
In 2002 Hutan set up the “Elephant Conservation Unit” (ECU) with a group of villagers to address the problem. Comprising six trained members recruited from within the local Kinabatangan communities, ECU has already managed to reduce human-elephant conflicts in the area by almost 90%.
Activities include daily patrols for crop-raiding animals and illegal activities, conducting research, and raising awareness within their communities. A distinct advantage is that the team is developing the ability to recognise the elephants individually, leading to them understanding how elephants adapt to degraded and fragmented habitat. Their insights are contributing towards an improved policy framework for elephant population management of the Sabah Wildlife Department.
The Unit has successfully engaged the co-operation of local farmers.
Elephant Conservation Unit Project
Aim:
To reduce the level of conflict between human activities and elephants, and enhance community engagement in the conservation of elephants and their habitat.
Results:
In 2009, the ECU carried on its routine activities of patrolling the boundaries between the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary and village farms for signs of elephant encroachment, and conducting elephant-raiding control at night in local farmers’ fields. While 23 palms were lost in 2009 from crop-raiding, the number has fallen dramatically since the ECU began its patrols, when the toll averaged 780 palms per year.
The ECU also provides technical advice and training in elephant damage control methods to villagers from elswhere in the Kinabatangan region and to the staff of large industrial oil palm plantations. In 2009, the Unit organised several sessions with two teams of workers based at Kulu Kulu and at Melangking Plantations.
If properly and regularly maintained, electric fences are a very efficient method to control elephant crop raiding. Most large oil palm estates use them but villagers cannot usually afford the cost of such fences and suffer regular crop damages so ECU has been giving micro-loans to village farmers to equip their communal fields with electric fences. The project also encourages and facilitates international research. Recent US research, using data from ECU developed a model to predict elephant movements and human-elephant conflicts. This showed that far less natural habitat was available to the elephants than the local communities had imagined, as not all forested land is available to the elephants.
As a result, the Sabah Wildlife Department directed the project to prescribe a set of actions that need to be undertaken by the state government to re-create a contiguous corridor of forest along the River. This paper is currently being reviewed and should be tabled before the State Cabinet during the first half of 2010. State Action Plans will be finalised in 2010.
Status:
Supported since 2007
