Malaysia: Sabah looking to end conflict between humans and elephants

The Star 9 Sep 18;

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah wants to resolve the conflicts between humans and pygmy elephants once and for all.

An unprecedented 26 Borneo pygmy elephants were killed in the first eight months of this year, said Deputy Chief Minister Christina Liew.

She said a task force headed by the state Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry’s permanent secretary Datu Rosmadi Datu Sulai was set up to tackle the matter.

“The Sabah Wildlife Department has done everything within its capacity in trying to resolve the human-elephant conflict.

“But there are no takers until now. I am very sure the workers know who killed the animals,” she said after attending the state-level Women’s Day celebration here on Friday.

“Right now, we want all plantation owners to cooperate with the state government to help stop the elephant deaths,” she said.

Liew, who is also the state Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister, said she was not accusing anybody of killing the elephants.

“What I am stressing here is that if an elephant dies on someone’s land, the onus is on the landowner to inform the Sabah Wildlife Department and provide an explanation,” she said.

Under Section 39 (1) of the Wild­life Conservation Enactment 1997, Liew said a landowner could take reasonable steps to protect his land, crops and other property from entry and damage by protected animals.

“Put up fencing to protect your land or plantation. Do not kill the elephants which may be roaming around or destroying fruit crops,” she said.

She advised plantation owners to inform the Wildlife Department of the presence of the elephants or deaths, personal injury or damage to their properties caused by the protected animal.

On the statement by Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok that there was no evidence of plantations being involved in the elephant deaths, Liew asked for Kok’s help to get the landowners and plantation owners to cooperate with the state government, including asking them to remove traps.


Jumbo death task force comes up with proposals
The Star 8 Sep 18;

KOTA KINABALU: A task force set up to oversee the worsening situation of elephant deaths in Sabah has come up with several recommendations.

Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC), which is part of the task force, said these efforts would include reanalysing past cases and post-mortems as far as 10 years ago to ascertain the major cause of the deaths.

He said all cases should be mapped to identify hotspots on human-elephant conflict, poaching, snaring and poisoning, said DGFC director Dr Benoit Goossens (pic).

“We need to identify the potential poisons that could lead to a slow death of elephants and revise the use of herbicides and pesticides in oil palm plantations while increasing anti-poaching patrols in all protected and unprotected areas with the presence of elephants,” he said.

Dr Goossens said the authorities could create an intelligence unit that would gather all information, then analyse it and give feedback to the enforcement team on the ground.

He said the authorities should enforce a zero-snaring policy in Sabah’s protected areas, forest reserves, forest plantations and oil palm plantations.

“We need to also find newer and friendlier strategies for pest control and do research on the impact of agrochemicals and heavy metals in the forests,” he said.

Authorities as well as plantations could consider adopting an integrated electric fencing (mobile fencing) strategy so that elephant movements were not compromised, Dr Goossens said.

“We can continue monitoring the movements of elephants in all ranges by using satellite collars where the information provided will help design corridors and monitor potential risk of human-elephant conflicts,” he said.

As for the death of elephants this year, he said: “It is difficult to identify the main factor. Some deaths are due to poaching, some due to conflicts, poisoning, and several other deaths caused by injuries from snares.”