Oil palm farmers investigate crops destroyed by elephants. The farmers, concerned about their livelihoods and with little understanding of conservation, are waging a battle against elephant herds who have for countless centuries seen this land as part of their territory. The farmers came to this area in 1997 as transmigrants, (JG Photo/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)
Sekutur Jaya, Jambi. Despite its serenity, complete with smiling, laid-back people, a serious problem is weighing heavily upon this remote village in central Sumatra.
Just mention “Elephas maximus sumatranus,” or the Sumatran elephant, and the serenity and smiles are replaced by fear, angry comments and a sense of helplessness.
Since 2002, herds of wild elephants have continually rampaged through palm oil plantations belonging to residents of Sekutur Jaya, destroying their crops and leaving angry farmers at their wits’ end, as well as worried about their food security. The fact that the elephants are an endangered species, and are merely reacting to human encroachment into their habitat, does little to mollify the villagers.
Sekutur Jaya was only founded in 1997 by transmigrants from Java and Sumatra.
“Could you please give me the forestry minister’s phone number? I’d like to tell him about our despair,” Sukur Rahmat, 58, the weary-looking village head, told visiting journalists from the Jakarta Globe.
As the lowest-ranking government representative in the area, Sukur is not only the depository for frequent complaints from the 275 families in the village, but is also one of the them, as the herds also affect his farm. “This week, those beasts came every day, destroying our palm oil fields,” Sukur said, taking a deep breath.
Their sense of helplessness is understandable: What can a group of villagers do against an angry pack of pachyderms, most weighing several thousand pounds or more?
That’s not to say they haven’t tried. Every Thursday night, villagers walk to the fields to recite from the Koran, praying that the wild elephants will go away. They’ve also reported the problem to less divine authorities, including the district chief and Jambi’s governor, but no solution has been forthcoming.
“It’s very frustrating to see palm oil trees that you take care of every day destroyed by wild elephants,” said Lukman, a transmigrant from East Java. “It seems that we don’t have a future anymore.”
“Where else can we go now?” Fauzi, another resident, said emotionally. “I started my field with 245 palm oil trees, now there are only 39 left.”
Fauzi said he no longer had the energy to continue farming and attempting to fight back, and he’s not alone. Comments from numerous other villagers ranged from “I’m ready to leave this place” to “How come nobody will help us?”
The root of the problem, unfortunately, is beyond the comprehension of these palm oil farmers. Long before the first houses were erected in Sekutur Jaya, Sumatran elephants roamed through the area. The village is merely apart of the offending herds’ home range.
The central government’s controversial transmigration policy, which began in the 1970s, eventually found its way to the forests of central Sumatra, which were cleared for settlements. It’s unlikely that government officials ever foresaw turf battles between humans and elephants.
Encroachment is an issue in other areas of Sumatra, and it’s not only about elephants. There were numerous incidents in 2009 of Sumatran tigers, another endangered species, attacking, and in some cases killing, illegal loggers, poachers and even villagers that were intruding into their territory. In response, humans are hunting, trapping and killing tigers.
A herd of Sumatran elephants needs a home range of at least 400 hectares, but rampant deforestation in Jambi has seen their territory replaced by palm oil plantations, leading to frequent clashes.
“Residents should understand that their village is the elephants’ home range. That is why they will destroy everything on their way [through],” said Osman Tri, coordinator for animal protection at World Wildlife Fund Indonesia in Riau Islands province, which borders Jambi.
“Humans have to learn to share space with elephants if they want a peaceful life,” he said.
The elephants that have been trampling through Sekutur Jaya village are among a remaining population of only 600 in Sumatra. Villagers won’t hesitate to shoot elephants to drive them away — there are regular tales of harrowing encounters and photos of elephant carcasses — meaning the “man versus wild” battle will continue until the regional or national government finds a solution.
“The central government has the power to bring about an equilibrium between humans and elephants,” Osman said. “We should ask the government what it will do to overcome this problem.”
Jambi’s provincial and district governments, despite wielding more power through decentralization, haven’t done anything because they don’t see this issue as a high priority, he said.
“[Central] government regulations issued in 2008 state that local governments should set up some kind of task force for animal conservation, but no local governments have abided by that regulation through today,” Osman said.
Didy Wurjanto, head of the Natural Resources Conservation Center in Jambi, told the Globe that in his view, the final solution is to relocate Sekutur Jaya village and give the land back to the elephants.
“It’s their home range, so we can’t win this conflict unless we compensate those elephants and give them a new home, which would cost a lot,” he said.
The other alternative, Didy said, would be to move the herd to one of the province’s national parks.
“But I think it would be best if we just relocate the village. We can [then] make a new elephant national park,” Didy said, citing the Way Kambas Elephant Training Center in Lampung as an example of establishing a preserve. “We can even add additional value to this solution, such as setting up the center as a new tourism site,” he added.
However, it may not be easy to convince Sekutur Jaya’s transmigrant villagers, who have spent the last decade there and are attached to their fields and way of life.
To the villagers, wildlife conservation is an alien concept.
Some farmers even sleep in their fields every night, lighting fires in some areas in an attempt to keep the elephants away.
“This palm oil field is the only thing we have. I can send my children to school from the results of this field,” said Kusnari, a transmigrant from West Sumatra. “I don’t understand why we should leave our village.
“I mean, these fields were created by the government. Why can’t the government move those elephants somewhere else?” Kusnari said. “We just can’t leave this place.”
But neither can the elephants. Eventually, something will have to give, or Sekutur Jaya will never know peace.
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