(MY) pygmy elephants

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Plantations, logging threaten pygmy elephants - Malaysiakini.com

Aug 9, 07 1:05pm Adjust font size:

 

Pygmy elephants unique to Borneo are fast losing their natural habitat

to deforestation and human encroachment, a two-year satellite tracking

study has revealed, conservation group WWF said today.

 

The pygmy elephants prefer to live in forests on flat, low land or

river valleys - the same terrain which is also being cleared for

commercial plantations and logging, the WWF study found.

 

" The areas that these elephants need to survive are the same forests

where the most intensive logging in Sabah has taken place, because

flat lands and valleys incur the lowest costs when extracting timber, "

said Raymond Alfred, head of the WWF's Borneo Species Programme.

 

The study showed that " elephants' movements are noticeably affected by

human activities and forest disturbance, " with probably no more than

1,000 of the pygmy tuskers left in Sabah state in northeast Borneo

where most of them live, far fewer than the 1,600 previously

estimated.

 

The study began in 2005 and involved tracking five pygmy elephants

which were fitted with collars that transmitted their location via

GPS.

 

Earlier efforts to track them on foot proved too difficult in the

dense jungle foliage.

 

Long-term forest management plan

 

 

The project is the first long-term study done on Borneo elephants and

the largest using satellite collars on the species, WWF said.

 

The study showed that the pygmy elephants were mostly found Sabah, in

the Malaysian part of Borneo island, where about 40 percent of the

forest cover has been lost to logging, palm oil plantations and human

settlement.

 

WWF said it was " crucial " that their remaining habitat in Sabah be protected.

 

It said Malaysia should ensure that logging in elephant habitat should

only be allowed if a long-term forest management plan was also in

place and oil palm plantations be put up on non-forested land.

 

Another four elephant groups are to be collared again this year in a

bid to gather more information, the WWF said.

 

Borneo pygmy elephants are subspecies of the Asian elephant. There is

little information about the species, only that they are smaller and

more gentle than their bigger cousins.

 

- AFP