Palm Oil Converted 16,000 hectares of Elephants Conservations Leaving Only 50 Hectares of Swamp

Posted on Apr 05, 2010

Balai Raja Wildlife Conservation Area in Sebanga village, Duri, Riau, has almost completely disappeared. The 16,000 hectares of forest area established as an elephant conservation area in early 1990s is no longer exist due to palm oil plantation conversions.

balai raja elephants conservation is gone

An Elephant in Balai Raja Conservation

When Kompas visited the Elephant Training Center in Sebanga, Duri, some 125 kilometers from the capital Pekanbaru, Riau, Saturday (3/4/2010), there are only around 50 hectares left of the Balai Raja Wildlife Conservation. Even then, some of those lands are also claimed by local villagers as theirs.

Sebanga Elephant Training Center (ETC) was inaugurated in June 1992 by the Governor of Riau and designated as elephant rehabilitation zone with an area of 5,873 hectares. The training center was part of the 16,000 hectares Balai Raja Wildlife Conservation Area which was prepared as an area for elephants’ relocation which at the time has started to enter the villages around Sebanga such as Petani, Balai Makam, and Pangkalan Pudu villages.

Without the Balai Raja Conservation Area, there are no place for elephants to be relocated causing the herd to enter and sometimes wrecked the villages around Sebanga increasing the already tense situation between the animals and human population.

According to Herman Aruan, a former elephant handler who is still living in Sebanga ETC, the remaining 50 hectares of the area can not really be called forest. It was a thicket of land from the marshes that surround the area ETC. “Had the swamps been a hard soil, the region would undoubtedly have disappeared entirely,” he said.

Even the ETC employee housing area had been planted with oil palm. There is only some 2 hectares of land left for elephant playground. “We did not dare to bring up the ownership of oil palm in the region. We only work as an elephant handler. We simply can’t afford to fight with the palm oil owner, “said Irwansyah, a senior elephant handler with the ETC.

Irwansyah said, there are only seven elephant currently lives in Sebanga ETC.

Syafriwan, the Farmer village head says that his village is located directly on the elephant crossing zone which means that elephants cross his village throughout the year. Each herd is estimated to contain some 40 to 45 elephants.

The elephant’s journeys are usually fixed starting from Pelapit Aman, in Pangkalan Pudu village towards Tegar. After staying in Tegar for a while the herd will make track back to Pelapit Aman. This migration happens every year.

“We don’t know what to do anymore. If the herd enters our villages and destroy thing, we are not allowed to fight back. The Government doesn’t seem to do a thing. If we kill the elephant, we will be arrested by the police,” says Syafriwan

“I don’t understand why the Government does not help us while the elephants are causing us to loose our properties and even sometimes our lives?” asked Syafriwan. (SAH)