Sumatra elephant population decreases by 35%

The Statesman , Sunday, September 02, 2007
Correspondent : Staff Reporter
Press Trust of India

Bandarlampung, Sept. 1: Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus) this year has witnessed a decrease in their population by 35 per cent when compared with the figure in 1992, when there were 5,000 heads, said an NGO.

“Some factors responsible for the decrease in their included deforestation, poaching and human encroachment on the animal’s habitats,” said Elisabet Purastuti, coordinator of the Elephant Conservation Programme of the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature)-Indonesia.

Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae) were also on the brink of extinction on Sumatra Island, and its population was only around 400 heads currently.

“Apart from the Sumatran tigers, Indonesia used to have two other subspecies of tigers, namely Java tiger and Bali tiger, but both have already been extinct,” said Hariyo T Wibisono, tiger programme coordinator of the Wildlife Conservation Society(WCS).

Both Purastuti and Wibisono said that the survival of the Sumatran elephants and tigers crucially depended on the protection of the remaining forests on the island.

An analysis of Citra Satellite’s data indicated that around eight million hectares of forest areas on Sumatra Island had disappeared between 1990 to 2000.

From 2000 to 2007, conflicts between people and elephants had killed a total of 42 people and 100 elephants on Sumatra Islands.

A national workshop on Sumatran tiger and elephant protection was also held in Padang, West Sumatra, this month to draw national plans of action and strategies. It was attended by 120 people representing both the governments and the NGOs from all over the world.

 
SOURCE : The Statesman, Sunday 02 September 2007
 


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