Human- Elephant Conflict in Segati village, a village in Langgam Sub district- Pelalawan District recently is escalating. This condition is triggered by intensive land clearing for plantation. Human-elephant conflict in Segati village began in early February has taken concern from local government. At the end of March, the Head of Pelalawan District Legislative, M. Harris made a field visit to collect information from local community.

On April 8, 2008, the Vice Head of Pelalawan District, Rustam Effendi together with the Head of Pelalawan District Police had a visit to areas encounter elephant raid. At this visit, community reported that there were two wild elephants that raided their palm oil plantation. To respond to this, the Vice Head of Pelalawan District and the Head of Pelalawan District Police requested the Conservation Authority of Riau to conduct socialization to community on how to handle elephant conflict. WWF was also requested to give technical assistance on techniques to handle human-elephant conflict in the socialization.

Socialization on handling human-elephant conflict is conducted in Sub district Langgam hall on June 12, 2008. This socialization was held on collaboration from local government of Pelalawan District, Pelalawan District Police, and WWF-Indonesia. At this socialization, representative from the Police, Aswin welcome the socialization as this kind of activity is good to be done but is still rarely conducted. In fact, community does not understand law and related regulation in detail. In his presentation, the representative of the police gave emphasis to community that elephant is one of animals protected by law which means any activity against such as killing elephant will face law enforcement. Meanwhile, the Head of Pangkalan Kerinci Police Sector said that if human-elephant conflict occurs in one area, the community should immediately report it as there are authority bodies that will handle the problem. However, he added that community could not rely on the authorities but they have to cooperate with the authority to create conducive situation in their village.

Socialization on Mitigation of Human-Elephant Conflict in Langgam Sub district on June 12, 2008. © WWF-Indonesia/SAMSUARDI, 2008

On discussion session, questions from community became heated when they asked about consequences of law enforcement on human-elephant conflict. In one side community understand that elephant is a protected wildlife, however can community make justification if elephants have raided their plantation, they can handle the elephant conflict with their own way? In respond to this question, the representatives from the Police said that any activity against law will get sanctions. However, for future, government should also pay their concern to community who become the victims of human-wildlife conflict. Besides that, community also requested clear boundary between area for conservation and area that can be used by community in order to minimize human-elephant conflict.

The activity then was filled with explanation from WWF on techniques to drive away wild elephants that enter community plantation At this opportunity, WWF shared their experiences on techniques to mitigate human-elephant conflict based on their experiences with Flying Squad (a team that mitigate human elephant conflict operating in Tesso Nilo National Park). The session then ended with distributing cannons made by PVC pipe to representatives of villages that can be used as a tool to scare away elephants so that elephants can be drive back to their habitat.