Saving the Asian Elephant


Executive Summary


he Asian elephant - a symbol that adorns flags and temple grounds of royal kingdoms and worshipped as a god and honoured as a scribe from India to Japan - is being squeezed out of its forest home by unchecked logging, agricultural clearance, and ill­planned development schemes.

The continually growing human population of tropical Asia has encroached upon the elephant's dense forest habitat. This fierce competition for living space has resulted in human suffering, a dramatic loss of forest cover, and reduced Asian elephant numbers to 34,000 to 51,000 animals in the wild, or less than one tenth of the estimated total of African elephants. Moreover, unlike African elephant populations, Asian elephant populations are highly fragmented with fewer than 10 populations comprising more than 1,000 individuals in a contiguous area, greatly decreasing long­term viability.

Poaching for ivory, which is only found in Asian elephant males, is severely damaging the sex ratio in some areas, notably southern India. In addition, both sexes are poached for hide and increasingly for their teeth. The hide is turned into bags and shoes, and both products are smuggled to China for medical use.

The Asian elephant, Elephas maximus, whose ancestors originated in Africa some 55 million years ago and ranged from modern Iraq and Syria to the Yellow River in China, but is now found only from India to Vietnam, with a tiny besieged population in the extreme southwest of China's Yunnan Province. It is not only a separate species from its African cousin Loxodonta africana, but is also placed in a different genus.

The absence of good data from past times, and the difficulty of counting elephants which live in thick tropical forests, means that it is impossible to quantify a decline in Asian elephant numbers, but it can be confidently assumed that destruction of habitat has led to a large reduction in elephant populations - and resulted in a serious loss of biodiversity throughout their range.

Asian elephants live in the region of the world with the densest human population, which is growing at about 3 per cent a year.

Clearance of forests for settlement and agriculture is disrupting traditional elephant migration routes and leading to violent clashes when hungry elephants raid crops. As a result, a once largely peaceful co­existence has turned bitter on both sides. Hundreds of people are killed by elephants in Asia every year, with up to 300 deaths in India alone. Between 1990­1992, two elephant populations, comprising no more than 50 individuals, killed 28 people in southern Vietnam.

Until only a few decades ago, thousands of wild elephants were domesticated throughout Asia for use in battle, work in timber extraction, construction, transport, and in religious, cultural, and social activities. Today Burma has 4,600 registered working elephants in the timber industry, and other Asian countries use them for tourism, transport, and tracking during scientific expeditions.

Bangkok has 3,000 elephants unemployed since the country declared a logging ban in 1989. In February 1995, the city banned the elephants - brought in from the countryside - from its overcrowded streets to protect the animals from heat exhaustion and pollution. Burma has offered the elephants jobs in its timber industry.

The relationship between humans and elephants is so unique that the animal has become a sacred and beloved deity. Effigies of Ganesha, the elephant­headed god, with his plump humanlike body, are found throughout Asia in village homes and on household altars. His head is sometimes adorned with jewels. White elephants are believed by many to be the reincarnation of Lord Buddha and wars have been fought over them. Thus, the growing conflict between humans and elephants is one of the most tragic and urgent challenges facing governments today. Through WWF­supported projects in Thailand, Vietnam, China, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bhutan, Nepal, and Malaysia, this problem is being assessed and solutions are being sought.

Because elephant herds range over such large areas, protection is more difficult than for tigers and many other threatened species. Large, well­managed reserves are required, but extended areas in which human activities compatible with the existence of elephants need to be established as "Managed Elephant Ranges". Corridors linking reserves should be well­designed and maintained. Scientific research should also be increased in order to determine elephant numbers and distribution. In addition, their social behaviour needs further study.

People living in elephant areas should be assisted in protecting their homes so that they do not turn hostile towards elephants. Compensation should be paid to villagers for loss of crops and help should be given to those whose relatives are killed by marauding elephants. Ways in which to minimize the conflict need to be devised as one of Asia's highest conservation priorities.

This could include elephant drives or safe, carefully planned translocation of rogue animals, techniques for warding off troublesome animals, reforestation programmes, public awareness and education, monitoring of migrating elephant populations, avoidance of agricultural clearance in migratory routes, and redesign of management areas taking in the socio­economic needs of the communities living in or near elephant habitat.

Poaching for ivory has also taken a serious toll on tuskers, while hunting for meat, hides, and other parts affects both sexes and the young. In 1995, China announced death penalties for five men, including two police, for involvement in poaching 16 elephants for their tusks. The dead elephants represent 5­10 per cent of China's known elephant population. Poaching for ivory by Laotians and Vietnamese is a serious problem along their shared border and incidents have also been reported in Burma and Malaysia and in other elephant range states throughout Southeast Asia where protection is weak. Elephant poaching in Sabah, Malaysia has risen sharply since 1992, and although not yet a very serious threat, it could easily escalate.

Therefore, regulations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banning trade in Asian elephant products should be strongly enforced. Strict anti­poaching measures should also be established throughout the elephant's range, along with the monitoring of vulnerable tuskers.

Nations with elephants need to incorporate the requirements of elephants in their National Conservation Strategies, to formulate specific National Elephant Strategies, and to implement them immediately. In 1991, the government of India, in collaboration with the State governments, launched Project Elephant, "a major conservation effort aimed at preserving the gene pool of this unique species and its natural habitats". In 1994, the government of Sri Lanka, published its Elephant Action Plan in a country where it is believed the animal has declined by almost 85 per cent since the turn of the 19th century. Sabah, Malaysia is in the process of finalizing its species management plan for elephants, based on a draft completed in 1994. Neighbouring Vietnam, whose elephant population has been reduced by an estimated 75 per cent in the last 25 years, expects to launch its Elephant Action Plan in 1995.

Support for development and realization of national elephant strategies should be provided by the international community. Richer governments have a duty to give technical and financial aid to tackle urgent human/elephant conflicts and to ensure that there are sufficient well­trained personnel to deal with the sociological, economic and ecological problems which threaten the survival of a heritage that belongs not only to Asia but to all the world's peoples.


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Copyright 1996, The World Wide Fund For Nature