On Sept 26 this year, I had the opportunity to visit the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary.
There I was introduced to four orphaned baby elephants. There was Yong Siput, a one-year-old calf who was separated from her herd and rescued from Sungai Siput (Perak). And there were Amoi, Poi and Ely, the five-year-old calves who were rescued from Chemomoi (Karak), Pos Poi (Perak) and a snare in Jeli (Kelantan), respectively.
As proven by wildlife experts, a baby elephant orphaned or abandoned in the wild simply cannot survive because baby elephants will succumb to helplessness, destitution, starvation, grief and death. This is because baby elephants not only need milk from their mother, but they also need constant care and companionship. Ergo, at the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary, the mahouts other than feeding the rescued calves, dispense extreme care and constant companionship to ensure that these vulnerable rescued babies thrive without their mother.
Across Asia, including Malaysia, the pace of human development has devastated elephant populations at an alarming rate. Asian elephants are even more endangered than their African cousins. The threats of habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation; illegal killing; and the loss of genetic viability resulting from small population size and isolation are adversely affecting their survival.
As urbanisation, industrial development, and agricultural expansion increase in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, Asian elephants’ habitats are shrinking rapidly, leading to increasingly isolated populations and a rising number of deadly human-elephant conflicts. For example, in Sumatra elephants, have lost 70% of their native habitat.
The Elephas Maximus, or the Asian elephant, is the biggest terrestrial animal in the country. They are the ecosystem engineers, meaning their various behaviours heavily alter their habitat. Simply by walking around, they can shape their environment. By moving in herds, their impact is multiplied. By stomping on saplings, peeling bark, breaking limbs, clipping branches and trampling on vegetation, forest elephants generate trail systems that can stretch tens of kilometres. All of that elephant activity shapes the forest canopy.
They clearly have a positive impact on the environment in a variety of ways. For example, when the elephants forage for vegetation, it replenishes the structure of plant communities, and these, in turn, influence the food supply for a host of animals, from mammals to insects.
They also help to maintain the integrity of forest and grassland habitats. Their large size enables the creation of pathways through dense forests along which they travel, which then creates access for other wildlife.
While digging dry riverbeds during periods of little rainfall, they often make water holes that are utilised by other species.
Huge rangelands are traversed by herds, and when they do so, seeds are dispersed in their faeces, aiding in the establishment of new, healthy vegetation. Even when their footprints are submerged in water, a micro-ecosystem may be created to support tadpoles and other species. Therefore, if our Asian elephants go extinct, the entire ecosystem will go with them.
The greatest threats to the Asian elephant population in Malaysia are deforestation and land fragmentation. The incessant development of industrial logging, large-scale commercial oil palm plantations and agriculture, road development and major dams in Malaysia have led to encroachment into places where elephants live. This has led to the frequent sightings of elephants being found outside of protected areas today.
On top of that, the human land use and climate change are destroying wild lands, fragmenting critical elephant habitats, and blocking historic migration routes.
The future of this important migratory species, as well as the vulnerable ecosystems that depend on it, are in jeopardy due to the expansion of commercial agriculture, infrastructural development, and extractive industries across Malaysia. Such disruptive human activities will lead to habitat loss and result in human-elephant conflicts. Following their foray into human habitation and farm areas, many elephants suffer reprisal assaults.
The Asian elephant is classified as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Its population has declined by an estimated 50% over the past 75 years, and there are an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 Asian elephants left in the wild.
As elephant numbers decrease, so do the trees. Decreasing or completely losing the tree species that rely on elephants is not only an issue for the balance of our flora; it also affects the herbivores that feed and live in those trees, such as bats, birds, insects, and other mammals.
Due to their great size, appetite, and migratory patterns, elephants are the key species that disperse more seeds further than any other animal. This is especially important in tropical forests where animals are responsible for up to 95% of seed dispersion over wind or water.
Research also shows that when seeds are carried and processed through elephants’ stomach acids, they are softened and germinate at a much faster rate. As elephant numbers decrease, so do the trees.
Reforestation or tree plantations can never net out deforestation. This is because newly planted forests are not native forests, which means that the former are far less valuable in terms of biodiversity, carbon storage, or maintenance of ecosystem services.
Most of Malaysia’s forest loss occurred in its densest forests, those with tree cover exceeding 50%, which generally store the most carbon and are richest with wildlife, including endangered orangutans, pygmy elephants, Sumatran rhinos (extinct), Malayan tigers and clouded leopards.
Throughout the forests of Malaysia, humans have cleared large areas of trees and have rapidly populated river valleys and plains. The elephants have been pushed into hilly landscapes and less suitable remnants of forest, but even these less accessible habitats are being assaulted by poachers, loggers, and developers, hence heart-breaking kismet that befell the young Yong Siput, Amoi, Poi and Ely.
Our Asian elephants are being chased from every side due to forest loss. They do not know where else to go as they have no more room to roam. Deforestation is a major cause of wildlife decline in Malaysia’s tropical ecosystem. Unless deforestation in Malaysia is halted, we could possibly see the Asian elephants be restricted to just a few remote populations within our lifetimes. Malaysia needs to restore forests to meet climate and biodiversity goals.
SUZIANAH NHAZZLA ISMAIL
Putramas, Shah Alam
