Where's the campaign for the elephants in Malaysia?

FORGET the media circus and the political grandstanding over three elephants who are probably receiving better healthcare in Japan than most Malaysians.

While people were submitting a memorandum to a security guard and making theatrical comparisons to panda diplomacy, a herd of 20 elephants was on the rampage in Segamat, Johor.

While politicians hosted press conferences demanding the return of “Dara, Amoi, and Kelat” – the “Save DAK” campaign – from their spacious Japanese zoo, Malaysia’s real elephant crisis has been playing out in the most direct way possible.

In 2025, on Mothers Day, May 11, Malaysians were confronted with the heart-breaking sight of a mother elephant trying to push a lorry off her dead baby. The calf had been killed while attempting to cross the East-West Highway in Perak. (A mother mourning her baby on Mothers Day – of course the video went viral.)

On May 2, 2026, in Jerantut, Pahang, 68-year-old farmer Zainul Ismail walked out to his MD2 pineapple farm and found nearly RM20,000 worth of his crop in ruins. Elephants had arrived in the night and left nothing but mud and broken fruit in wide swathes by morning. No one was handing out a memorandum for him.

The gap between the media spotlight and the ground reality of conservation is stark. And if we are honest with ourselves, it exposes a truth about how we prioritise outrage in this country.

While all the cameras were pointed at the gates of the Taiping Municipal Council in Perak for that solemn handing over of a memo, here is what has actually been happening to elephants in Malaysia:

> Habitat crisis: The Malaysian elephant has lost over 60% of its forest habitat over the past 40 years. Their natural homes, the rainforests, have been systematically replaced by oil palm estates.

> Conflict burden: Between 2020 and 2024 alone, Perhilitan (Wildlife and National Parks Department) recorded 4,920 complaints regarding human-elephant conflict.

> Economic loss: These conflicts are not cheap. The total bill for damaged crops, destroyed property, and loss of livelihood during that same period was estimated at RM39.4mil.

> Fatalities: In April 2026 in Lahad Datu, Sabah, a 69-year-old man was trampled to death by a wild elephant while working with his son on a plantation. According to Perhilitan's National Elephant Conservation Action Plan 2023-2030, there have been nine fatalities between 2015 and 2021.

> Resource gap: With such staggering numbers, the government body responsible for handling this in the peninsula, Perhilitan, has only one professional team for the entire state of Johor to handle elephant matters. They are drowning.

The real elephant in the room is the hypocrisy of the campaign to have the three elephants returned from Japan. Critics claim the 25-year deal is a "life sentence" for Dara, Amoi, and Kelat, yet they ignore the life sentence faced by the wild elephants of Malaysia every single day.

The trio is living in a First World zoo. Japan has the budget, the veterinary expertise, and the climate-controlled facilities to handle three animals. If Singapore can keep penguins in a tropical climate, Japan can keep three elephants in a heated barn. They are fine. Our focus on them is a luxury problem.

Out there in the real world, the elephants are losing. There is no ecological corridor strong enough to protect them. They are shot, poisoned, or hit by trucks because their migration path is now a federal highway. They eat pineapple because we ate their jungle.

We are arguing over three elephants in Japan while an entire generation of wild elephants here at home is fighting a losing war against deforestation and road construction.

Here is my spicy take. The "Save DAK" movement is not a conservation effort; it is a political distraction. It is a way to shake fists at a foreign country and look compassionate on camera without doing the hard, expensive, and politically-inconvenient work of actually saving the elephants in our own backyard.

If the critics want to be useful, they should disband the task force for Japan and immediately mobilise one for Malaysia. Stop asking for a five-year review for three elephants in Osaka. Start asking why our own five-year plans for wildlife corridors are failing. Don't waste time on the wrong reasons.

We have a choice. We can continue to perform outrage for three elephants abroad, or we can roll up our sleeves and fight for the thousands left behind in the Malaysian jungle. The window for saving them is closing fast.

PHILIP MR

Seremban