Dire situation: With floodwaters rising along Sungai Kinabatangan, there is a possibility that surrounding wildlife might be looking for dry land. — Bernama
Expert: Maintain forests, corridors to limit animal encroachment
KOTA KINABALU: During disasters such as floods, there is a tendency to forget about what is happening with wildlife species as people prioritise their own safety and try to recover property losses.
However, it is essential to remember that wildlife is also affected by disasters, and many times, the protected lands, forests and corridors might not work in its favour.
Dr Nurzhafarina Othman, founder of the non-governmental environmental organisation Seratu Aatai, said it is therefore important to protect the corridors and maintain higher-ground refuges for wildlife species.
She said from her observation, almost half of protected areas such as wildlife reserves are swampy and, in other words, areas that humans do not need.
“It’s also always like that. We protect areas that are not suitable to the needs of wildlife and then we complain the animals don’t want to stay in their habitat.
“What I mean is we designate protected areas that fail to meet the needs of wildlife, yet we complain when animals stray beyond their habitats,” Nurzhafarina stressed.
So in instances of disasters like floods, they can make certain areas inaccessible for extended periods, further fragmenting elephant movement and limiting the animals’ access to critical habitat.
Take Kinabatagan, for example, which is experiencing floods at the moment, she said.
“While water levels rise, so do concerns for the wildlife that depends on this landscape. For Bornean elephants, these floods reshape their habitat, forcing them to seek higher ground and navigate fragmented forests,” said Nurzhafarina.
She said that during high water levels, elephants avoid flooded areas, leading to increased pressure on drier, often human-modified landscapes.
This disruption can intensify human-elephant conflict as elephants are pushed closer to plantations and settlements in search of food and refuge, she explained.
With climate change influencing weather patterns, extreme flooding events like this may become more frequent and that is why protecting key elephant corridors and maintaining natural high-ground refuges are essential to ensuring their survival in a rapidly changing environment, Nurzhafarina said.
“If you’re in Kinabatangan, stay safe and be mindful of the wildlife that is also navigating these challenging conditions,” she added.
Kinabatangan is among the three districts still badly affected by floods in Sabah, with a total of 252 victims from 65 families displaced.
The other two districts are Beaufort and Keningau.
Floods in Sabah started over a week ago, first hitting the east-coast areas and northern districts and then slowly moving to the central parts and now, western parts of the state.
