Save the Elephants
Published by Bob and Ray under on 12:07 PM
Dear Readers of Bob and Ray's "Save the Whales" Blog:
We just used World Wildlife Fund's free Conservation Action Network to help save endangered elephants in Indonesia. We urge you to take action, too.
On March 21, ten endangered wild Sumatran elephants, chained to trees without food or water, were found by WWF on the island of Sumatra, in Indonesia. They had been captured by the Riau Provincial Forestry Service after feeding on the crops of a nearby village. WWF has since provided food, water, and emergency medical care to the elephants, but their fate remains uncertain.
Only three weeks earlier, six other elephants had been found dead in an illegal oil palm plantation in Riau, apparently poisoned in retaliation for feeding in the plantation.
These are the latest casualties in an escalating conflict between elephants and humans in central Sumatra, the direct result of uncontrolled and often illegal destruction of the elephants' forest habitat usually for oil palm and pulp. Riau's elephant population has dramatically fallen to around 400 in 2003, a decline of 50 percent in just five years.
This current crisis of humans and elephants dying is unnecessary. Human-elephant conflict can be avoided if elephants are given enough room to live and if these confrontations were dealt with professionally. Sadly, this is not happening in Riau.
WWF is calling for the immediate end to all logging, encroachment, and conversion of elephant forests in Riau to protect the elephants' remaining habitat. The government should also immediately extend the size of the existing Tesso Nilo National Park from 38,000 hectares (94,000 acres) to at least 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres).
You can make a huge difference by showing the Indonesian government that people around the world care about these elephants.
To sign an online petition to the president of Indonesia, go to the Conservation Action Network at http://tinyurl.com/r8gw9. Please ask your friends to take this action also. Thanks!
Here is what the petition email reads like:
Mr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
President of the Republic of Indonesia
P.O. Box 9949, Jakarta 10000
Indonesia
Dear President Yudhoyono,
I am deeply concerned over the plight of the endangered wild Sumatran elephants in Riau, Indonesia.
I urge the Indonesian government to immediately stop all logging, encroachment, and conversion of forests in elephant habitats in Riau and protect them as national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
The current crisis also strongly shows the needs to extend the existing Tesso Nilo National Park from 38,000 hectares to at least 100,000 hectares to provide a larger habitat for the elephants.
I welcome the development in 2004 of a human-elephant conflict mitigation protocol for Riau by the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and several nongovernmental organizations. I believe this protocol, if implemented, would avoid the kinds of cases that have occurred in recent weeks. I therefore urge the Riau authorities to stop the capture of elephants and instead speedily implement this protocol.
Other initiatives such as those conducted in the Tesso Nilo landscape, which have successfully reduced the rate of forest loss, elephants deaths, and losses suffered by local communities due to elephant-human conflicts, should be replicated across the province.
Recent incidents such as the cases of the ten captured and abandoned elephants or the six poisoned elephants should not be allowed to occur again. Putting an end to these conflicts is essential not just for Sumatra's elephants but also to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of the communities living alongside them.
Sincerely,
Your name
We just used World Wildlife Fund's free Conservation Action Network to help save endangered elephants in Indonesia. We urge you to take action, too.
On March 21, ten endangered wild Sumatran elephants, chained to trees without food or water, were found by WWF on the island of Sumatra, in Indonesia. They had been captured by the Riau Provincial Forestry Service after feeding on the crops of a nearby village. WWF has since provided food, water, and emergency medical care to the elephants, but their fate remains uncertain.
Only three weeks earlier, six other elephants had been found dead in an illegal oil palm plantation in Riau, apparently poisoned in retaliation for feeding in the plantation.
These are the latest casualties in an escalating conflict between elephants and humans in central Sumatra, the direct result of uncontrolled and often illegal destruction of the elephants' forest habitat usually for oil palm and pulp. Riau's elephant population has dramatically fallen to around 400 in 2003, a decline of 50 percent in just five years.
This current crisis of humans and elephants dying is unnecessary. Human-elephant conflict can be avoided if elephants are given enough room to live and if these confrontations were dealt with professionally. Sadly, this is not happening in Riau.
WWF is calling for the immediate end to all logging, encroachment, and conversion of elephant forests in Riau to protect the elephants' remaining habitat. The government should also immediately extend the size of the existing Tesso Nilo National Park from 38,000 hectares (94,000 acres) to at least 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres).
You can make a huge difference by showing the Indonesian government that people around the world care about these elephants.
To sign an online petition to the president of Indonesia, go to the Conservation Action Network at http://tinyurl.com/r8gw9. Please ask your friends to take this action also. Thanks!
Here is what the petition email reads like:
Mr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
President of the Republic of Indonesia
P.O. Box 9949, Jakarta 10000
Indonesia
Dear President Yudhoyono,
I am deeply concerned over the plight of the endangered wild Sumatran elephants in Riau, Indonesia.
I urge the Indonesian government to immediately stop all logging, encroachment, and conversion of forests in elephant habitats in Riau and protect them as national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
The current crisis also strongly shows the needs to extend the existing Tesso Nilo National Park from 38,000 hectares to at least 100,000 hectares to provide a larger habitat for the elephants.
I welcome the development in 2004 of a human-elephant conflict mitigation protocol for Riau by the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and several nongovernmental organizations. I believe this protocol, if implemented, would avoid the kinds of cases that have occurred in recent weeks. I therefore urge the Riau authorities to stop the capture of elephants and instead speedily implement this protocol.
Other initiatives such as those conducted in the Tesso Nilo landscape, which have successfully reduced the rate of forest loss, elephants deaths, and losses suffered by local communities due to elephant-human conflicts, should be replicated across the province.
Recent incidents such as the cases of the ten captured and abandoned elephants or the six poisoned elephants should not be allowed to occur again. Putting an end to these conflicts is essential not just for Sumatra's elephants but also to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of the communities living alongside them.
Sincerely,
Your name
