Death match between people, animals in Sumatra's declining forests

Death match between people, animals in Sumatra's
declining forests

Jakarta Globe - March 3, 2009

Anita Rachman -- In the heart of Sumatra, amid the
forests, farmlands and rural villages, a disturbing
turf war is raging between humans and animals for
dwindling space and natural resources.

The dispute has exposed the ugly side of human
nature -- illegal logging, land clearance, poaching
and corruption -- but has also brought out the
basic instincts of some of Sumatra's most
critically endangered species.

On Monday morning, the battled erupted again, and
once again ended in death, when a Sumatran tiger
killed two men in a forest in Jambi Province's
Muarojambi district.

Didy Wurdjanto, head of the Jambi Natural Resource
Conservation Body, said he suspected the victims
were outsiders who were illegally logging in the
forest near Sungai Gelam village.

The fatality scorecard since January now stands at:
tigers 4, humans 8. In addition, two women were
trampled to death in late January by a pair of
elephants in Aceh Province, which itself has seen
increasing conflicts between people and pachyderms.

The tiger who killed Musmuliadi, 31, and Musliadi,
30, on Monday morning was not protecting the
forests from the two men. It was protecting itself,
which is an increasingly difficult job in Sumatra
these days. Local and international conservation
groups say there's less than 500 wild tigers left
in Indonesia, mostly in south and central Sumatra,
with a lone one believed to be in western Sumatra.

Local residents have nonetheless trapped and killed
four "man-eating" tigers this year, despite
warnings by the central government, while eight
people have died and two others survived their
encounters with a tiger. Among the victims was a
17-year-old boy from Lampung Province, whose body
was dragged off on Feb. 22 and found the next day.

Direct conflicts between people and animals is
occurring because human development is encroaching
on the habitat of wild animals, affecting their
food sources, hunting grounds and breeding areas,
said Desmarita Murni, communication manager of the
Indonesian branch of World Wide Fund for Nature.

She said forest cover in Sumatra was 25 million
hectares in 1985, but by 2007 it had fallen to 13
million hectares due to illegal logging and land
clearance, and the expansion of the palm oil
industry and other agribusiness.

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Asia Pacific Solidarity Network (APSN)
Email: jamesbalowski@yahoo.com
WWW : www.asia-pacific-solidarity.net