Trip to India to Learn on Human Elephant Conflict Mitigation

Transcription

1 Community April 2004 Trip to India to Learn on Human Elephant Conflict Mitigation Six people from Tesso Nilo consisting of a village head, a Natural Resources Conservation (KSDA) staff, two Riau pulp staffs and two WWF Tesso Nilo staffs visited India on January 26 th to February 9 th, The visit was assisted by Ajay Desai, one of the experts on elephant in India. The aim of the visit was to learn about human elephant conflict mitigation. The study tour studied either in situ conservation as well as ex-situ conservation (i.e captive elephants). Conservation areas in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu States in India were chosen due to their long experience in managing human elephant conflicts. These two states are situated in southern India with dry forest influenced by monsoons. No heavy rain in this area has occurred in the last three years. The climate is completely different from that in Tesso Nilo. The WWF staff, the head of village and the government staff were sponsored by WWF Netherlands and WWF-AREAS Program while the staff of pulp & paper companies were by the companies they represent. The team thanked Mr. Ajai Desai, Christian William, Mr. Ashok Upreti, Dr Khadri, Mr. Ravish for their expertise. In addition, the team also thanked the donor for funding this study tour. What lessons have been learnt? Basically, conflicts between humans and elephants have occurred due to sharing the same space that has limited resources. Understanding the ecology and behavior of elephants and also the types of land use and forest products used by people needs to be addressed in searching and identifying the core of the conflict. The components that need to be addressed in terms of looking for the answers are cost of conflict, types of conflict, type of farming system, space required between elephants and humans, habitat fragmentation, grouping of elephants and scale of conflict.

2 Figure 1 A group photo with Dr Khadri after learning about capturing elephants and captivity Measuring population density of elephant can be ranged from sophisticated research to quick and dirty. What needs to be done in Tesso Nilo is to start up a species management to find gap measure, to help improve the situation, and then to immediately use existing information and knowledge. For the long run, this should be established with good knowledge on data accuracy (research) by sophisticated research methods. Figure 2 Some basic equipments used to capture elephants The means to mitigate conflicts can vary from Elephant trenches, guard huts, watch towers, anti poaching camps and other installations, crop protection units, electric

3 fencing, changing existing land use or changing the farming system are examples of various conflict mitigation methods. One thing to bear in mind is that the conflict cannot be resolved to zero, but it can be significantly reduced depending on the best strategy to be implemented. Figure 3 Elephants can be used for tourist attraction too The team also learned about a community project for conservation. The key to the success of the community project is that the project goes beyond the project schemewith human touch, site specific, and gives priority to landless marginalized people. The project involves other stakeholders in order to make the project theirs too. For further information please contact Zulfira Warta zwarta@wwf.or.id or Samsuardi samgajah@yahoo.com

4 Human Elephant Conflict April 2004 LOSSES ENCOUNTERED BY COMMUNITIES DUE TO HUMAN ELEPHANT CONFLICT (HEC): In Lubuk Kembang Bunga Village, Bagan Limau hamlet,and Air Hitam village,from 2000 July 2003 It is necessary to assess the amount of losses caused by elephants encountered by communities. Based on the amount we will be able know to what extent some communities experience the conflict compared to other areas. The data will form the basis to determine the Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) mitigation measures. It is expected that the investment toward elephant conflict mitigation measures is equal to the amount of loss that had been encountered by the community. Initial procedures to count the damages due to elephant conflicts are by categorizing the conflicts that have occurred. For this specific site, the conflicts were sorted into: (a) large companies loss in oil palm plantations. The 2 plantation companies are Pt. Inti Indo Sawit and Pt. Musi Mas (b) Lubuk Kembang Bunga community s large-scale loss in ex-hph Inhutani IV planted with oil palm trees, (c) Community s small-scale loss of farming land, (d) Other losses as the community are becoming anxious and beginning to doubt whether they will continue their agricultural activity. The following information will specify the calculation on the third loss category: Community s smallscale loss of farming land. The community rubber plant that bark was damaged by elephant, photo Nurchalis Fadhli/doc.wwf The amount of loss is calculated through a questionaire. The questionaire is designed so that it can trace back the loss encountered by each population over each plot of land owned that has ever encountered a conflict, including the time when the conflict occurred in each partial land. The losses of the conflict are assessed the ones occurred in the year 2000 to July The time limitation is necessary due to the fact that in many cases, the community often reported the losses suffered earlier. The nearer the time the conflict occurred to the time the interview was carried out, the more accurate was the data obtained.

5 Initially, the villages took census. The census in each village has become vital in recognizing households who had encountered HEC during 2000 to July At least 20% of the total census was taken randomly from representatives from each village. They were then present at several intensive interviews as entitled respondents. The data gathered from the The community hut hit by elephant.photo Adi Purwoko/doc.WWF interviews is then calculated to get the average loss of one farmer sample.this figure is then multiplied by the number of households that had ever encountered conflicts in each village.this data is called community loss. For details please refer to the table below: No Item Data Lubuk. Kembang Bunga Village / Community Bagan Limau Air Hitam Total / average 01 Population Households Migrant percentage 18,8 % 51,0% 48,0 % 39,3 % 04 Percentage of households earning a living by harvesting forest 57,8 % 62,6 % 74,1 % 64,8 % crops/timber 05 Average income per capita/month , , , ,- (In Rp.) 06 Average total land owned per capita (in ha) 5,2 2,5 4,7 3,9 07 Average size of plot of land owned per capita 1,4 1,2 1,8 1,4 08 Agricultural Commodity (in %) - Oil palm 62,5 % 94,4 % 64,7 % 73,9 % - Rubber 18,8 % 5,6 % 35,3 % 19,9 % - Seasonal crops 18,8 % 0 % 0 % 6,3 %

6 09 10 Number of households encountered conflict from 2000 to July 2003 Financial Loss (in Rp) - In ,2 - In In ,1 228,7 - In 2003 to July ,4 - Total financial loss from 2000 to July ,4 214,9 32,8 202,8 257,2 707,7 308,0 247,4 53,8 16,5 625,7 685,1 475,3 485,3 345, ,8 From the table above, number of households encountered conflict the most was of Air Hitam village, and then Bagan Limau hamlet at the second, and Lubuk Kembang Bunga village at the last. For a 3 year elephant conflict the calculation showed that the greatest loss Lubuk Kembang Bunga village had experienced was in 2002, while for Bagan Limau village was in 2003 and for Air Hitam village was in Air Hitam showed decelerating from 2000-July 2003 which meant that since the most difficult time in 2000 Air Hitam had not yet been interested in agricultural or other commodities. This situation agreed with high percentage shown by number of villagers depending their livelihood on extracting forest crops particularly the timber. In general, the largest loss of the three villages was encountered by Bagan Limau with Rp. 707,7. According to the year when the conflict arose among the three villagers the largest loss was in The total for the three in 3 years was Rp billion or 23.4 USD (1 USD = Rp.8,500) For further information please contact Nurchalis Fadhli, nfadhli@hotmail.com

7 NGO Liaison April 2004 DRUG DISCOVERY FROM TESSO NILO? WWF Indonesia in collaboration with LIPI (Indonesian Institute of Science) and PT Indo Bio Pertiwi conducted a drug discovery survey in Tesso Nilo. PT. Indo Bio Pertiwi is a company involved in the collection of natural product samples from the biodiversity of Indonesia - including green plants and marine organisms - the isolation of endophytic (or other symbiotic) microbes from those samples, the preparation of extracts from the isolates and the screening of those extracts against known disease states or other targets to identify useful biological activity which could lead to new pharmaceutical or other products. These two institutions agreed to conduct an exploration in Tesso Nilo as a location for their program (PT IBP and LIPI), Drug Discovery from Indonesian Archipelago. As reported by LIPI on the survey conducted on June 2003, Tesso Nilo possesses potential resources of medicinal significance to develop; from a short survey earlier 82 plant species that can be utilized to cure about 38 diseases grow in this forest. Thus Tesso Nilo with its rich biodiversity is considered to have great potential to contain many more species. The exploration was held from April 15 to 19, 2004.The purpose of this exploration is to discover new drug substances especially developing endophyte microbe potential (microbes living in plant tissue) as new drug resources. The chances of finding new compounds of value from within the myriad of Indonesian plants are great. The bioactive compounds that may find uses in medicine, industry and agriculture are being sought by way of focused screening programs in Indonesia coupled with collaborations with particular pharmaceutical, biotechnology and agricultural chemical companies. For the long term, WWF has been facilitating the initiation of the collaboration among these institutions with the local government. It is expected that Tesso Nilo will give great contribution to the health of the world as well as to the local economy. For the initiation, a meeting among the related bodies to develop this collaboration in Riau province was held in April 16, 2004 attended among others by Riau Natural Conservation Agency, Riau Forestry Agency, Food and Drug Administration and some academician from local universities. All the participants gave support and good response for this exploration and requested further collaboration with IBP through the facilitation from WWF. For further information please contact Dudi Rupendi drupendi@wwf.or.id

8 Forest Crime April 2004 RIAU NGO NETWORK SUE THE DISTRICT GOVERNMENT OF PELALAWAN AND INDRAGIRI HULU. After some discussions and analysis on the concession permits issued by some district governments, the Riau NGO network came to the conclusion that the District Government of Pelalawan and Indragiri Hulu have made mistakes regarding issuing the concession permits. The mistakes mean here among other: 1) The regent had violated his authority on issuing the permits, 2) The permits issued is against higher regulations 3) there are overlapping areas on the permits issued. These three mistakes occurred especially in issuing the permit of Industrial Timber Plantation Concession CV Bhakti Praja Mulia by the Pelalawan Regent, and the permit of Industrial Timber Plantation Concession PT. Artelindo by the Indragiri Hulu Regent. The permit for CV Bakti Praja Mulia was issued in Inhutani IV Industrial Timber Plantation Concession when the concession was still active. Moreover, at the time Inhutani IV was proposed by the Ministry of Forestry as Sumatran Elephant conservation area. The permit given to PT Artelindo overlapped with PT. IFA timber concession permit. In addition, part of the area infringes on the Bukit Sosa Wildlife Sanctuary. To date, the permit is still not revoked. Due to this situation, the Riau NGOs involved in Save the Riau Forest Alliance on April 6, 2004 sent their indictment to the two local governments to revoke within 10 days the two permits that had been issued. When the dead line was due only Pelalawan district government had given a response stating that Pelalawan district government will conduct a field survey as part of the planning to revoke the CV Bakti Praja Mulia permit. Unfortunately Pelalawan regent did not give a clear statement on when the permit will be revoked. Therefore, the Save Riau Forest Alliance will persist in accusing Pelalawan and Indragiri Hulu district governments to the court. The indictment will be registered this week through the Legal Aid Office of Riau. The prosecutions are that the two district governments revoke the permits that have been given to CV Bhakti Praja Mulia and PT Artelindo. For further information please contact Zenwen Pador z_pador@wwf.or.id

9 Communication April 2004 TESSO NILO ATTRACT RUMBAI ECOLOGICAL CLUB (REC) TO VISIT The beauty of Tesso Nilo forest attracted some people from Rumbai Ecological Club (under Caltex Pacific Indonesia oil company) to Tesso Nilo forest for eco-tourism purposes. The trip was conducted on April 5 6, 2004 accompanied by WWF Riau staff. Two REC organizers were sent and they verified each spot that they planned to visit. The trip route started from Pekanbaru, Koran Intersection, to Gunung Sahilan village where they could find hot a water reservoir and also the Tesso River, then to RAPP mills and spend the night in Rengat town. Lubuk Kembang Bunga village was the next destination of this rendezvous where they could rent a boat and travel on the Nilo river to the heart of the most diverse - the Tesso Nilo forest, the last lowland forest in Sumatra. Honey collectors from the tall Sialang trees is another attraction that they could watch. Besides getting close to the captive elephants that are planned arrived in Lubuk Kembang Bunga village in mid of April 2004 as part of the flying squad team. The result from this trip is to stimulate the visitors and increase local awareness on forest and environment preservation where they can get an economic value of it, better than cutting down the trees, also to stimulate eco-tourism activity in Tesso Nilo forest, where an alternative economy can be developed. Rumbai Ecological Club planned to conduct an internal meeting related to Tesso Nilo Eco-tourism trip and WWF will support the promotion. Hopefully, in May the ecotourism trip to Tesso Nilo can be conducted. WWF will support the eco-tourism initiation due to create the awareness for the public in general and locals of the importance of forest and its habitat preservation in Tesso Nilo Landscape and other preservation sites. For further information please contact Dani Rahadian, ; rahadian_dani@yahoo.com