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201301Feb16:38

Long-​term solu­tions needed for con­ser­va­tion of Bor­neo pygmy ele­phants, says WWF

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 01 Feb­ru­ary 2013 | mod­i­fied 01 Feb­ru­ary 2013
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Borneo elephantsWWF is con­cerned about the recent pygmy ele­phant deaths in the Gunung Rara For­est Reserve.

WWF is pro­vid­ing sup­port to the Sabah Wildlife Depart­ment and is part of the spe­cial task­force that has been set up by the Depart­ment to fur­ther inves­ti­gate the mat­ter. Our patrolling teams worked closely with the Depart­ment in unearthing the inci­dent,” said WWF-​Malaysia Exec­u­tive Director/​CEO, Dato’ Dr Diony­sius S K Sharma.

Accord­ing to reports, all the deaths have hap­pened in areas where forests are being con­verted for plan­ta­tions within the per­ma­nent for­est reserves.

The cen­tral for­est land­scape in Sabah needs to be pro­tected totally from con­ver­sions. All con­ver­sion approvals need to be reviewed by the Sabah Forestry Depart­ment and assessed not purely from com­mer­cial but the endan­gered species and land­scape ecol­ogy per­spec­tives,” Dr Diony­sius said.

Con­ver­sions [from native for­est to plan­ta­tion, Moos] result in frag­men­ta­tion of the forests, which in turn results in loss of nat­ural habi­tat for ele­phant herds, thus forc­ing them to find alter­na­tive food and space, putting humans and wildlife in direct conflict.


Holis­tic long-​term solu­tions need to be put in place to address and mit­i­gate the prob­lem, Dr Diony­sius said. He said that ele­phants need to be ele­vated to a ‘totally pro­tected’ sta­tus under Part 1 of Sched­ule 1 of the Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Enact­ment of Sabah, which has been rec­om­mended in the Sabah Wildlife Department’s Ele­phant Action Plan 20122016, but has yet to be imple­mented.

Fre­quent and large scale patrolling is crit­i­cal to avoid such con­flict from hap­pen­ing again. How­ever, given the vast area that requires patrolling, it is a mas­sive task for the Sabah Wildlife Depart­ment. More resources, includ­ing man­power, hard­ware and finances, should be allo­cated to the Depart­ment. The exist­ing hon­orary wildlife war­den pro­gram of the Depart­ment is doing well and should be expanded,” Dr Diony­sius said.

The Bor­neo pygmy ele­phants (Ele­phas max­imus borneen­sis) are an endan­gered species. There are approx­i­mately 1,200 of these evo­lu­tion­ar­ily unique ele­phants in Sabah and all of Bor­neo. Ten car­casses of the endan­gered ele­phants were found dead within the cen­tral forests of Sabah which is also a part of the Heart of Borneo.


(Source: WWF press release, 30.01.2013)

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