Satellite Tracking Reveals Threats To Borneo Pygmy Elephants

Borneo pygmy elephants depend for their survival on forests situated on flat, low lands and in river valleys, the study found. Unfortunately, it is also the type of terrain preferred for commercial plantations. Over the past four decades, 40 percent of the forest cover of the Malaysian State of Sabah, on the northeast of the Island of Borneo -- where most of pygmy elephants are -- has been lost to logging, conversion for plantations and human settlement.

"The areas that these elephants need to survive are the same forests where the most intensive logging in Sabah has taken place, because flat lands and valleys incur the lowest costs when extracting timber," said Raymond Alfred, Head of WWF-Malaysia's Borneo Species Programme.

"However, the Malaysian government's commitment to retain extensive forest habitat throughout central Sabah, under the "Heart of Borneo" agreement, should ensure that the majority of the herds have a home in the long term," Alfred added.

This study, the largest using satellite collars ever attempted on Asian elephants, suggests that pygmy elephants prefer lowland forests because there is more food of better quality on fertile lowland soils.

But the study also shows that elephants' movements are noticeably affected by human activities and forest disturbance. Data gathered so far reveals there are probably not more than 1,000 pygmy elephants left in Sabah -- less than the 1,600 or so estimated previously.

And, one important area for the elephants, the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, may be too small and too fragmented to support a viable population for the long term, according to the report.

Five pygmy elephants were darted and outfitted with collars two years ago by the Sabah Wildlife Department with WWF assistance, after tracking the elephants on foot through the dense jungle was found too difficult over long periods. The collars sent GPS locations to a WWF computer via satellite as often as once a day. This was the first long-term study done of Borneo pygmy elephants.

"It's amazing that we still know so little about one of the biggest land mammals on Earth," said Matthew Lewis, program officer for WWF's Species Conservation Program. "The only reason we now have a good understanding of where these elephants travel from day to day is because satellite collar technology has given us access to the most inaccessible forests on Borneo."

The information provided by the research might also help predict locations where elephants and farms may come into future conflict.

While pygmy elephants can live in logged and secondary forests, it is crucial that their remaining habitat is managed sustainably and not converted into plantations, WWF says. Logging in elephant habitat should only take place if there is a long-term forest management plan in place, and oil palm plantations should be established on degraded, non-forested land devoid of elephants and orangutans, according to the conservation organization.

WWF and the Sabah Wildlife Department will collar another 4 elephant groups this year, and the information gathered from the tracking will be used to provide additional and more specific information towards elephant conservation in Sabah.

Background

In 2003, WWF determined pygmy elephants to be a likely new subspecies of Asian elephant. However, very little is known about them, including how many there are. Pygmy elephants are said to be smaller, chubbier and more gentle-natured than other Asian elephants. They are found only on the northeast tip of Borneo, mainly in the Malaysian state of Sabah.

Sabah and the lowland forests of the "Heart of Borneo" still hold huge tracts of continuous natural forests, which are some of the most biologically diverse habitats on Earth, with high numbers of unique animal and plant species. It is one of only two places in the world -- Indonesia's Sumatra Island is the other -- where orangutans, elephants and rhinos still co-exist and where forests are currently large enough to maintain viable populations. Large areas of Borneo's forest are being rapidly cleared and replaced with plantations of oil palm, rubber, and timber. The illegal trade in exotic animals is also on the rise, as logging roads and cleared forest open access to previously remote areas.

The Heart of Borneo initiative is a conservation and sustainable development programme aimed at conserving the last large expanse of contiguous forest on Borneo. The Heart of Borneo covers 240,000 sq kms of rainforest that straddles the border between Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia. In February 2007, in Bali, Indonesia, the ministers of the three Bornean governments signed an historic Declaration to conserve and sustainably manage the Heart of Borneo. This has put the area on the global stage of conservation priorities.

The report is entitled "Satellite Tracking of Borneo's Pygmy Elephants"