The Elephant Project Collaborates With Government Of Myanmar To Save Endangered Elephants Throughout The Nation

The Elephant Project recently announced that it has entered into an unprecedented agreement with the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar to relocate elephants from high human-elephant conflict areas to safe zones around the country.

“Helping to end human-elephant conflicts in Myanmar is the first step in our long-term commitment to Myanmar’s elephants,” The Elephant Project Founder and President Dane Waters said in a statement. “We are extremely optimistic that The Elephant Project, working together with the Government of Myanmar, will help ensure that the nation’s elephants will survive, and that our joint efforts will serve as a strong testament to what public-private partnerships can accomplish.”

U Win Naing Thaw, Director of the Nature and Wildlife Conservation Division, Forest Department Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation of The Republic of the Union of Myanmar also believes that by working with The Elephant Project, they will find a long-term solution to protecting Myanmar’s critically threatened elephant population.

As per the agreement, the Forest Department and The Elephant Project will identify the animals that need relocation to mutually agreed upon areas while ensuring the health and safety of the elephants.

The collaboration, noted U Win Aung, The Elephant Project’s Myanmar based Advisory Board member, “will save countless elephants in Myanmar which are on the run for survival due to deforestation and poaching.”

In addition to the relocation efforts in Myanmar, The Elephant Project is also funding the building of electric fences in the country that will help keep elephants out of the crops of local villagers. This preventive measure reduces the chance that villagers, whose livelihoods are threatened by elephants searching for food, will either kill the elephants themselves or call in poachers to do it for them.

As part of The Elephant Project’s long-term commitment to the country, the organization plans to establish an elephant sanctuary or sanctuaries in Myanmar dedicated to domestic elephant protection and long-term care.

To underwrite the costs of operating the sanctuary in perpetuity, The Elephant Project will develop significant residential and commercial real estate investment opportunities in the country. This development will be located adjacent to the sanctuary and permit non-intrusive viewing of elephants for “ecotourism” and “voluntourism”.

This unprecedented effort will inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the Myanmar economy, creating a perpetual and powerful funding source for the sanctuary established to protect the country’s elephant population. It is a win for the government, donors, the Burmese people, and most importantly the elephants.

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Wild elephants breaking into paddy fields successfully driven into forest reserve in Myanmar

YANGON, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Three wild elephants breaking into paddy, corn and banana fields in Yekyi township, Myanmar's southwestern Ayeyawaddy region, has been successfully driven into forest reserve, the official Global New Light of Myanmar reported Monday.

A combined team of Myanmar Timber Enterprise's Emergency Response Units and local authorities managed to send the elephants into forest reserve after three hours' tracing on Saturday in the forest, north of Mayagon village, Laymyatnar township.

In order to find food, the three wild elephants broke into the fields on last Tuesday evening and spent for three days and four nights there, but resulted in no physical damage to human and houses, the report said.

Myanmar government has planned to conduct a 10-year action plan on elephant conservation (2018-2027), which is aimed at preventing a decrease in the number of wildlife elephants and a reduction of their pasture land.

The action plan covers protection of wild elephants and their pasture land, solving human-elephant conflict, prevention of and enforcing action against illegal trading of elephants and their body parts as well as managing tame elephants.

According to reports, the number of wild elephants in Myanmar has dropped due to fewer wild elephant corridors, a reduction of their pasture land and human-elephant conflict.

Besides, illegal hunting and wildlife trading are two of the reasons for the declination in the elephant number, the report added.

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Wild elephants breaking into paddy fields successfully driven into forest reserve in Myanmar

YANGON, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Three wild elephants breaking into paddy, corn and banana fields in Yekyi township, Myanmar's southwestern Ayeyawaddy region, has been successfully driven into forest reserve, the official Global New Light of Myanmar reported Monday.

A combined team of Myanmar Timber Enterprise's Emergency Response Units and local authorities managed to send the elephants into forest reserve after three hours' tracing on Saturday in the forest, north of Mayagon village, Laymyatnar township.

In order to find food, the three wild elephants broke into the fields on last Tuesday evening and spent for three days and four nights there, but resulted in no physical damage to human and houses, the report said.

Myanmar government has planned to conduct a 10-year action plan on elephant conservation (2018-2027), which is aimed at preventing a decrease in the number of wildlife elephants and a reduction of their pasture land.

The action plan covers protection of wild elephants and their pasture land, solving human-elephant conflict, prevention of and enforcing action against illegal trading of elephants and their body parts as well as managing tame elephants.

According to reports, the number of wild elephants in Myanmar has dropped due to fewer wild elephant corridors, a reduction of their pasture land and human-elephant conflict.

Besides, illegal hunting and wildlife trading are two of the reasons for the declination in the elephant number, the report added. Enditem

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Villagers in sanctuary learn to live with, protect wild elephants

On his way to the field, U Pyone Cho unexpectedly met a wild elephant but was too surprised to do anything.

Before he knew it, the beast had picked him up with its trunk, and he thought it was the end for him. But he held on to the trunk with all the strength he could muster and the wild elephant threw him into a bush quite far away. Desperate to ward off the elephant, he took out some firecrackers he had with him and lit them.

“Both of us ran away from each other,” U Pyone Cho recalled, laughing, and he only suffered a sprained back from the encounter.

U Pyone Cho lives in Kun Thi Myaung village in Taikkyi township, Yangon Region. The village – a drive of over three hours from Yangon city – is near Bago Yoma Sanctuary, which is home to wild elephants.

With about 100 houses, the peaceful and quiet village on the way to Myaing Hay Wun Elephant Camp is surrounded by dragon fruit, sugar cane and mango orchards.

The village is a hotspot of human-elephant conflict, and villagers admit they are always worried about the possibility of encountering the jungle giants while working in their fields or heading home.

Residents said wild elephants usually enter the village at night to eat in the paddy fields. Sometimes, they forage for food at villagers houses.

“We just watch them when they get into the sugar-cane because we dare not drive them out. Our farm hut has a watchtower on top of a tree where we have to sleep all night,” said farmer U Thein Aung.

Five years ago, a villager was killed by a wild elephant when he tried to confront it and drive it away, according to U Thein Zaw, another villager.

Years of elephant incursions have made the villagers careful. Usually when elephants enter their fields, they do not confront them but frighten them by setting off firecrackers, which send the beasts scampering back into the jungle.

Villagers usually carry firecrackers when they venture into the forest in case they encounter wild elephants.

The Emergency Elephant Response Unit (EERU) at the elephant camp also helps in preventing human-elephant conflict as well as poaching by installing radio collars around the elephants’ necks to track them.

The World Wildlife Fund-Myanmar helps the unit with patrols and conservation work. Once an elephant is monitored venturing outside the sanctuary, a team from the unit is dispatched to drive the elephants back to the protected area.

Near Bago Yoma, there are about 10 villages, including Kun Thi Myaung, where human-elephant conflicts occur, said U Maung Maung Chay, leader of the unit.

The unit protects the villagers and keeps a close watch on the movement of the elephants. They also protect the beasts from poachers.

“We follow the elephants and take care of them as if the elephants belonged to us. When we find suspected poachers, we contact the authorities and we keep monitoring. The hunters do not dare to come near the elephants. The village administrators phone us if the wild elephants enter a village. If they are in a normal mood, we go there and turn them away by setting off firecrackers or shouting. If the elephants do not run away, we call in the kumkis (decoy elephants) of the EERU,” he said.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Win Tun of the forest security force said they conduct daily patrols to prevent human-elephant conflicts and to stop poachers.

“In the sanctuary, humans are invading the habitat of the elephants, chopping down trees and planting crops. This leads to less grazing area for the elephants, so they go into the fields of the villagers,” said U Win Tun.

The officer added that elephants also enter villages to escape poachers who hunt them in the forest.

Cooperation between the villagers near Bago Yoma, law enforcement and conservationists has increased recently, resulting in fewer elephant killings.

EERU patrols have started in the regions and states of Ayeyarwady, Bago, Sagaing, Magwe, Mandalay, Rakhine, and Nay Pyi Taw.

“The police, Forestry [Department], timber businesses, local government officials and village groups have joined hands to stop the poaching of elephants,” said U Zaw Min Oo, manager of the Myanma Timber Enterprise.

While locals are afraid of the elephants, they don’t want the beasts to go extinct, villager U Maung Maung Chay said, adding that villagers have learned to avoid elephants.

He cited the example of one stubborn wild elephant that always intrudes into villages. The villagers fondly call it “Jeep Car” because it moves very fast.

“He doesn’t stay in the forest much. He lives near the village. He has been tranquilised and released in Myauksamari Sanctuary twice, but he always returns here,” said U Maung Maung Chay.

Villagers urged the government and conservationists to help them set up electric fences around their fields so elephants do not destroy their crops.

“If we can grow crops in protected fields,” U Thein Aung said, “people will have food and will help protect the elephants from poachers.”

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‘Two key factors to end jumbo deaths’

KOTA KINABALU: Identifying the source of poisoning and improving the layout of the electric fencing are among key tasks that need to be tackled quickly in overcoming the deaths of Borneo pygmy elephants.

A Sabah-based conservationist Dr Marc Ancrenaz said the post-­mortems had yet to give a conclusive cause over the jumbo’s recent deaths, though suspicion was that it might be poisoning of their food and water sources.

“What is happening now is that most of these elephants are coming out of the forests to forage and may be consuming water and food sources that might be contaminated by fertilisers or chemicals,” he said.

“We need to find the source of the poisoning. So far, investigators cannot pinpoint any poison in the dead elephants’ blood stream.”

A total of 18 pygmy elephants have died since April. The motive behind more than half of the deaths could not be ascertained.

The others were killed by hunters’ traps or died due to natural causes.

Dr Ancrenaz said another concern was the setting up of electric fences haphazardly by plantation and farm owners.

“These elephants sometimes manage to slip through the gaps between the electric fences, but could not get out of the fenced area, causing further human-elephant conflict,” he said.

Dr Ancrenaz said such electric fencing should be placed with an overview of the landscape to minimise conflicts triggered by fragmented forests in the elephants’ natural roaming area.

Noting that the state government was setting up a task force to look into the deaths, Dr Ancrenaz said it was important to get advice from experts handling the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and India.

Though Sabah’s wild elephant population is only about 1,500 to 2,000, he said they were breeding well.

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Poachers are killing endangered Asian elephants for their skin and meat, not their tusks

A poached elephant in Myanmar. The elephant had been wearing a satellite-GPS collar as part of a Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute study tracking elephant movements to mitigate human-elephant conflict. (Photo: Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute)

Poaching wasn’t the largest conservation concern for Asian elephants, an endangered species, until satellite tracking stunned researchers.

Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) have found that poaching, not for elephant tusks but for the animal’s meat and skins, is an emerging crisis for Asian elephants in Myanmar. The findings were published March 13 in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

The team first became aware of the crisis while conducting an unrelated study fitting Asian elephants— which are smaller than their African cousins—with satellite GPS collars to understand their movements better and reduce human-elephant conflict.

“It was a shock,” says Christie Sampson, who is lead author of the paper, a doctoral student at Clemson University and an SCBI doctoral fellow. “We started off with really great ideas of how we were going to be able to track the elephants across the landscape. The GPS collars were supposed to last three to five years, but we started losing the elephants relatively quickly.”

The shortest time between an elephant being collared and being poached was six days.

Of the 19 elephants fitted with satellite GPS collars, seven were poached within a year. The toll rose the longer they investigated, with on-the-ground partners finding the mutilated carcasses of 40 additional elephants in systematic surveys across the southern-central region of the country.

With skin torn from their bodies and limbs hacked off, the sight of the dead elephants was distressing for local partners whose main goal is to protect the elephants.

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Elephant poaching emerging crisis in Myanmar

Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) have found that poaching is an emerging crisis for Asian elephants in Myanmar, according to a report on the nationalzoo.si.edu website.

Researchers first became aware of the crisis while conducting an unrelated telemetry study in which they fitted 19 Asian elephants with satellite GPS collars to better understand elephant movements and reduce human-elephant conflict. Seven of those 19 elephants were poached within a year of being fitted with the collars. The findings suggest that human-elephant conflict, which was thought to be the biggest threat to Myanmar’s wild elephants, may be secondary to poaching. And conservation efforts to help the 1,400 to 2,000 wild elephants in Myanmar should prioritize anti-poaching efforts.

Observations and discoveries from SCBI’s partners on the ground in Myanmar found further evidence of large-scale poaching. In less than two years, they confirmed that at least 19 elephants, including the seven with satellite GPS collars, were poached. And systematic surveys showed an additional 40 poached elephants were found across the southern central region of the country. 

Unlike African elephants, Myanmar’s elephants are being targeted by poachers for their skin instead of ivory. In Asian elephants, only males have tusks, which can vary in size, the report said.

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Asian Elephants Are Now Being Killed for Their Skin

The smell was ghastly and the sight even worse. Twenty-five elephants lay dead in a riverbed in the Ayeyawady (Irrawaddy) delta in southwestern Myanmar. “The stench is what led villagers to the bodies in the first place,” says Aung Myo Chit, the Smithsonian Institution’s Myanmar country coordinator, who also leads a local NGO, Growth for Prosperity, that helps rural residents avoid deadly conflicts with elephants.

It was the trust Aung Myo Chit’s outreach workers had earned that led villagers of Nga Pu Taw Township to reveal the dead elephants. Ordinarily, local people avoid reporting poaching to the authorities for fear they’ll be blamed.

By the time Aung Myo Chit’s filmmaker colleague Klaus Reisinger got there in early May, the giant carcasses had deteriorated badly. “Their bellies were bloated,” Reisinger recalls with a shudder.

Captive elephants are often used to drag carcasses of elephants slain for their ivory out of riverbeds where they’re commonly found. But that wasn’t possible this time. The skin had been stripped from the bodies, leaving them to tear apart if moved. So staff with the Myanmar Forest Department who came to investigate burned them in place to prevent their contaminating the downstream water supply.

Such spectacles are familiar on African savannas, where elephants are more numerous and poachers have stalked their ivory for decades. Not so in the thick forests of Myanmar, where the country’s remaining 1,200 to 1,400 endangered wild elephants are elusive and only the males (and not all males) have tusks.

But this and other, smaller recent slaughters in the Ayeyawady delta were not ivory raids. Poachers had killed males, tuskless females, and calves alike in pursuit of a different prize: their skins.

Using elephant skin and other body parts is nothing new in Southeast Asia. In Myanmar and elsewhere—particularly in tribal areas—the skin is dried, ground, mixed with oils, and applied to treat eczema and other skin conditions.

“But there’s a lot we don’t know,” says Martin Tyson, a Wildlife Conservation Society biologist who’s helping Myanmar’s government draft an elephant conservation plan. “Recently Chinese biologists said it’s used for upset stomachs.”

According to Aung Myo Chit, something seems to have surprised the poachers who killed the 25 elephants earlier this year. They “left behind the skins which they’d put up to dry over bone fires.

They hung up the skin like laundry. Some bags were confiscated with raw hides still rolled up on pieces of wood and severed elephant trunks.”

“Rolled up like toilet paper,” Reisinger adds. “People tell me they can skin an elephant in four or five minutes.” Because of heavy penalties for gun ownership, the high-powered rifles used by poachers in Africa are rare in Myanmar. Instead, poachers often use darts and metal and bamboo spears dipped in readily available pesticides; the elephants die slow, painful deaths.

Professional poachers “go into an area and find local guides,” Tyson says. “The guides often get arrested, and the poachers get away. But the amount guides can earn is probably months’ worth of what they could gain by any other activity.”


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Asian Elephants Are Now Being Killed For Their Skin

The smell was ghastly and the sight even worse. Twenty-five elephants lay dead in a riverbed in the Ayeyawady (Irrawaddy) delta in southwestern Myanmar. “The stench is what led villagers to the bodies in the first place,” says Aung Myo Chit, the Smithsonian Institution’s Myanmar country coordinator, who also leads a local NGO, Growth for Prosperity, that helps rural residents avoid deadly conflicts with elephants.

It was the trust Aung Myo Chit’s outreach workers had earned that led villagers of Nga Pu Taw Township to reveal the dead elephants. Ordinarily, local people avoid reporting poaching to the authorities for fear they’ll be blamed.

By the time Aung Myo Chit’s filmmaker colleague Klaus Reisinger got there in early May, the giant carcasses had deteriorated badly. “Their bellies were bloated,” Reisinger recalls with a shudder.

Captive elephants are often used to drag carcasses of elephants slain for their ivory out of riverbeds where they’re commonly found. But that wasn’t possible this time. The skin had been stripped from the bodies, leaving them to tear apart if moved. So staff with the Myanmar Forest Department who came to investigate burned them in place to prevent their contaminating the downstream water supply.

Such spectacles are familiar on African savannas, where elephants are more numerous and poachers have stalked their ivory for decades. Not so in the thick forests of Myanmar, where the country’s remaining 1,200 to 1,400 endangered wild elephants are elusive and only the males (and not all males) have tusks.

But this and other, smaller recent slaughters in the Ayeyawady delta were not ivory raids. Poachers had killed males, tuskless females, and calves alike in pursuit of a different prize: their skins.

To read the full article, click on the story title

Locals Seek Police Assistance to Deter Rampaging Elephant

A wild elephant has been on a rampage through several villages in the west of Pathein Township in Irrawaddy Region as of Tuesday, and locals are afraid.

“That elephant is really wild and not afraid of humans. It stamped a pig to death in Kyun Kalay village and also destroyed a house in Ywathit village. We locals are scared that it could hurt us,” U Hla Htay, the administrator of Kyaukphya village tract, told The Irrawaddy.

Forestry police and personnel of the Pathein Township Forestry Department arrived in the village tract on Friday after locals sought help. The forestry department brought four tamed elephants to help drive it back to the forest.

Wild elephants visit farms for food usually from the paddy harvest in November to around May before the rainy season starts, according to locals.

“As people cut down trees excessively, it causes deforestation, and elephants are devoid of foods. They are losing their habitats. So, they come to human settlements to eat paddy, banana and other crops grown by the people, resulting in human-elephant conflict,” said Sai Zaw Oo, a supervisor of the Myanmar Elephant Lovers Association, a local community-based organization based in Ngapudaw Township.

“At the same time, this has given elephant poachers the opportunity to hunt wild elephants that come and search for food,” he added.

Last year, a herd of wild elephants came and ate crops grown by locals around Ngwe Saung Beach in the west of Pathein Township, and four local villagers were killed in resultant human-elephant conflicts, according to the Ngwe Saung Beach police station.

In June this year, non-governmental organizations, forestry police and Myanma Timber Enterprise formed a team tasked with scaring away elephants from human settlements and preventing them from being hunted by poachers. The team carries out regular patrols across the forests with tamed elephants.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Conservation, 18 wild elephants were poached in Myanmar in 2016 whereas about 30 elephants have been hunted as of Aug. 31 this year.

The elephant population of the country is now estimated to be between 1,400 and 2,000—a significant decrease from about 10,000 in the 1940s, according to the Forestry Department.

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ASIAN ELEPHANTS ARE NOW BEING KILLED FOR THEIR SKIN

A lawless zone in northeastern Myanmar has cornered the market in a gruesome good: elephant skin jewellery.

The smell was ghastly and the sight even worse. Twenty-five elephants lay dead in a riverbed in the Ayeyawady (Irrawaddy) delta in southwestern Myanmar. “The stench is what led villagers to the bodies in the first place,” says Aung Myo Chit, the Smithsonian Institution’s Myanmar country coordinator, who also leads a local NGO, Growth for Prosperity, that helps rural residents avoid deadly conflicts with elephants.

It was the trust Aung Myo Chit’s outreach workers had earned that led villagers of Nga Pu Taw Township to reveal the dead elephants. Ordinarily, local people avoid reporting poaching to the authorities for fear they’ll be blamed.

By the time Aung Myo Chit’s filmmaker colleague Klaus Reisinger got there in early May, the giant carcasses had deteriorated badly. “Their bellies were bloated,” Reisinger recalls with a shudder.

Captive elephants are often used to drag carcasses of elephants slain for their ivory out of riverbeds where they’re commonly found. But that wasn’t possible this time. The skin had been stripped from the bodies, leaving them to tear apart if moved. So staff with the Myanmar Forest Department who came to investigate burned them in place to prevent their contaminating the downstream water supply.

Such spectacles are familiar on African savannas, where elephants are more numerous and poachers have stalked their ivory for decades. Not so in the thick forests of Myanmar, where the country’s remaining 1,200 to 1,400 endangered wild elephants are elusive and only the males (and not all males) have tusks.

But this and other, smaller recent slaughters in the Ayeyawady delta were not ivory raids. Poachers had killed males, tuskless females, and calves alike in pursuit of a different prize: their skins.

Using elephant skin and other body parts is nothing new in Southeast Asia. In Myanmar and elsewhere—particularly in tribal areas—the skin is dried, ground, mixed with oils, and applied to treat eczema and other skin conditions.

To read the full article, click on the story title

Locals Seek Police Assistance to Deter Rampaging Elephant

PATHEIN — A wild elephant has been on a rampage through several villages in the west of Pathein Township in Irrawaddy Region as of Tuesday, and locals are afraid.

“That elephant is really wild and not afraid of humans. It stamped a pig to death in Kyun Kalay village and also destroyed a house in Ywathit village. We locals are scared that it could hurt us,” U Hla Htay, the administrator of Kyaukphya village tract, told The Irrawaddy.

Forestry police and personnel of the Pathein Township Forestry Department arrived in the village tract on Friday after locals sought help. The forestry department brought four tamed elephants to help drive it back to the forest.

Wild elephants visit farms for food usually from the paddy harvest in November to around May before the rainy season starts, according to locals.

“As people cut down trees excessively, it causes deforestation, and elephants are devoid of foods. They are losing their habitats. So, they come to human settlements to eat paddy, banana and other crops grown by the people, resulting in human-elephant conflict,” said Sai Zaw Oo, a supervisor of the Myanmar Elephant Lovers Association, a local community-based organization based in Ngapudaw Township.

“At the same time, this has given elephant poachers the opportunity to hunt wild elephants that come and search for food,” he added.

Last year, a herd of wild elephants came and ate crops grown by locals around Ngwe Saung Beach in the west of Pathein Township, and four local villagers were killed in resultant human-elephant conflicts, according to the Ngwe Saung Beach police station.

In June this year, non-governmental organizations, forestry police and Myanma Timber Enterprise formed a team tasked with scaring away elephants from human settlements and preventing them from being hunted by poachers. The team carries out regular patrols across the forests with tamed elephants.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Conservation, 18 wild elephants were poached in Myanmar in 2016 whereas about 30 elephants have been hunted as of Aug. 31 this year.

The elephant population of the country is now estimated to be between 1,400 and 2,000—a significant decrease from about 10,000 in the 1940s, according to the Forestry Department.

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Wild Elephants Destroy Home, Crops in Ngapudaw Township

PATHEIN — Two herds of hungry wild elephants destroyed a house and crops in a village in Irrawaddy Region’s Ngapudaw Township on Monday.

According to locals, each herd included at least five elephants. The herds arrived separately from the east and west of the Pathein-Mawtin Road in the township’s Dipayone Kwethit village on Monday evening.

“The two herds were only about 500 feet from each other. They seemed to be starving. They came close to the fences of our houses and ate bananas and other crops. Because they came so close to people, Forestry Police had to fire shots to scare them away,” said Tin Chaung village tract administrator U Tun Lay, who helped police drive the wild elephants away.

A house in Dipayone Kwethit was destroyed by elephants that had wandered into the backyard to eat crops. The elephants were not aggressive toward villagers, local residents said.

“The elephants approached the fences of our houses, but didn’t appear to be hostile. It seems they had been chased by a group of elephant poachers,” said U Tun Lay.

“When one household scared them away, they went to another house. If that house scared them off, they went to the next one. The villagers were too scared to sleep that night [on Monday]. They made noises and lit fires [to keep the elephants away from their houses],” he added.

The elephants were still in the woods near the village on Tuesday morning, he said.

An “elephant-scaring” team was on its way to the village on Tuesday, Khun Pyone Naing, head of Ngapudaw Township Forestry Department, told The Irrawaddy.

The team, formed in June this year and made up of non-governmental organization workers, Forestry Police offers and Myanma Timber Enterprise staff, is tasked with scaring away elephants from human settlements and protecting them from poachers. It conducts regular patrols in forests, and when necessary drives away wild elephants with the help of domesticated elephants.

“Such places are frequently visited by wild elephants. We will drive them back into the forest with the assistance of domesticated elephants,” Khun Pyone Naing said.

For the time being, Forestry and local police are providing security for the village.

According to local residents, wild elephants usually visit farms in search of food from the time of the paddy harvest in November until around May, just before the rainy season starts.

Elephants have seen their habitats shrink dramatically due illegal logging in recent decades, said Sai Zaw Oo, a supervisor at the Myanmar Elephant Lovers Association, which is based in Ngapudaw Township

“So, they come to human settlements to eat paddy, banana and other crops grown by humans. And this has led to human-elephant conflict” he said.

“At the same time, this has given elephant poachers the opportunity to hunt wild elephants that come and search for food,” he added.

Last year, four local villagers were killed in elephant-human conflicts that erupted after the animals started eating crops near Ngwe Saung Beach in the west of Pathein Township, according to the Ngwe Saung Beach police station.

On Nov. 30 Forestry Department personnel had to drive away a wild elephant after it destroyed a house and killed a pig in Kyaukphya village tract in the west of Pathein Township.

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Wild elephants wander near forest, ‘hiding from poachers’

Ten wild elephants are wandering in the forest by a highway and the authorities are protecting them from poachers.

The elephants near the Pathein-Mawtin highway in Ayeyawady Region are thought to be fleeing from poachers.

Htun Lin, administrator of Ngayokekaung Township, said: “Residents informed us of 10 elephants wandering in the forest near the highway. We took the photos of the elephants and then deployed a patrol.”

He added that the elephants did not harm the residents
.
“I think they came near the people to hide from poachers who usually operate in deep forests. We joined forces with members of an elephant conservation group and patrolled a mile perimeter. This is the first time I’ve seen wild elephants approach that close to human settlements.”

“Voices for Momos”, a group of elephant protectors, told a media conference on November 1 that between January and August at least 30 wild elephants were slaughtered for their ivory and skin.
The country was left with only 1,400 to 2,000 wild elephants, they added.

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Passage for elephants blocked

The natural corridors for around 50 wild elephants in Ukhia's reserve forest area have been blocked by temporary camps set up for the helpless Rohingya refugees.

Experts say the animals, which come from Bandarban's Naikhyangchhari usually during the winter, might face the threat of extinction if the situation does not change.

They say many parts of the 30,000 acres of forest land in Ukhia have already been razed to the ground and the Rohingya settlement could be the final nail in the coffin for the large mammals.

Elephants, which move in groups, go on seasonal migrations in search of food, water, minerals, and mates.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, biodiversity expert Anisuzzaman, chief adviser of Isabella Foundation, said the around 50 elephants, which were already in trouble due to the construction of Cox's Bazar-Teknaf highway, could face the threat of extinction if their migratory routes are kept blocked.

He said once the corridors are closed, the animals would start mating within the group, resulting in weaker breeds. In the long run, the elephants might not survive, he added.

Anisuzzaman also said such closure of the corridors could trigger human-elephant conflicts in the area, leading to deaths on both sides.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, the conflict is a result of habitat loss and fragmentation. When elephants and humans interact, there is a conflict from elephant raids, leading to injuries and deaths of humans. Also, elephants are killed by humans for reasons other than ivory collection, it says.

A forest official said two Rohingyas died after being trampled by elephants last week.

Again, in the face of the conflict, elephants often stop using their usual migratory routes and in many cases, they start mating within their group, say experts.

Over 429,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh, after violence broke out in their homeland in Mynanmar's Rakhine on August 25.

Failing to get place in the registered camps, many of the refugees had to set up camps by the Cox's Bazar-Teknaf highway. Unfortunately, the camps blocked the elephant corridors in Ukhia.

In a month or so, forest officials said, over 4,500 acres of the reserve forest area in Ukhia had been completely destroyed in addition to the damages caused earlier.

Again, the government has recently allocated 2,000 acres of reserve forest land in Ukhia Ghat Mouja area for setting up a new camp for the Rohingyas.

Contacted, Cox's Bazar Deputy Commissioner Md Ali Hossain said the government had no other option but to allocate the reserve forest land for the refugees. He said the administration had no khas land in its possession.

The inter-sector coordination group, a consortium of foreign donors, was working to build the camp, said forest officials.

Visiting the Ukhia Ghat Mouja, these correspondents saw that around one fifth of the 30,000 acres of land already had many new and old Rohingya settlements on it.

Similar camps were seen in Shilkhali and Whykang Moujas in Teknaf, and in private rubber plantation area in Naikhyangchhari of Bandarban.

A huge area of the reserve forest has been razed to the ground. Old clothes, plastic bottles, polythene bags remain scattered at places.

The district administration sources said many of the 14 new camps were blocking the elephant corridors, including those in Ukhia.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, several civil society members said the government should act faster to ensure that the natural elephant corridors are freed. They said it would help the animals migrate without any trouble.

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Myanmar elephant killings raise fears of extinction

At least 30 elephants have been reported killed in Myanmar this year, according to a joint report by the Wildlife Conservation Society, Fauna and Flora International (FFI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) released on August 12, in honor of World Elephant Day.

This year’s death toll exceeds numbers reported in previous years, raising concerns among wildlife conservation professionals about the survival of Myanmar’s wild elephant population.

 “This year, 30 elephants have been killed by hunters. Over six weeks, five elephants were killed. It is a bit higher than the average annual number of elephant deaths,” said Aung Myo Chit, the coordinator of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Myanmar.

Myanmar’s wild elephant population is thought to have almost halved over the past decade to between 2,000 and 3,000, though some estimates put the number far lower.

Some elephants are killed in wars waged against humans over land and resources. According to government figures, since 2010, at least 35 people and 95 elephants have died this way.

Even more elephants, however, are targeted by hunters, who use poisoned arrows or rifles to kill the animals so they can sell their body parts. Elephant poaching is thought to have increased tenfold in recent years.

“The illegal trade in elephant skin is rampant,” said Mark Grindley, the Taninthayi programme manager for FFI. “People are using skin as jewelry and medicine. There is an illegal trade in elephant skin and parts of other wild animals at famous destinations like Yangon and Kyaiktiyio Pagoda.”

Elephant skin can sell for up to K5,000 (US$3.65) per square inch.

“Poachers kill female and baby elephants for their skin,” said FFI Taninthayi field coordinator Nay Myo Shwe. “Myanmar’s elephants face extinction if it continues.”

Fortunately, wildlife organizations have stepped up to address the poaching crisis. WWF announced on August 10 that it had raised $263,211 from 3,000 supporters to fund an emergency action plan to train rangers to fight wildlife crime.

“Training rangers is the first step on our journey to win this battle against poachers,” said Christy Williams, country director of WWF Myanmar. “Rangers are on the conservation frontlines, protecting the world’s natural and cultural treasures. With their commitment and the help of our supporters, there is hope for Asian elephants.”

The donations funded an eight-day training on law enforcement methods, intelligence gathering and crime scene management for 45 Myanmar rangers. They were also given lessons on the value of biodiversity.

The rangers are expected to begin patrolling next month.

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Suspect shot in elephant poacher bust

The body of a wild elephant killed in Ayeyawady Region.

A suspected elephant poacher was shot while resisting arrest during a police bust on August 13 in Thabaung Township, Ayeyawady Region.

Suspect Cho Tin, a 55-year-old resident of Ayeywady Region, was wounded on his right thigh and is now being treated at the Pathein General Hospital. Two other suspects who were with Chi Tin at the time of the attempted arrest are on the loose, according to police.

Police Captain Myo Lwin of Thabaung Township said: “We’ve heard about elephant poachers in this region. After spotting a slaughtered elephant, we continued looking for suspects and found them in the middle of the forest. One suspect was aiming his gun at us, so we had to shoot him. The wound was not critical.”

The police also seized two guns, four small tusks and other remains of an elephant.

Soe Tint, chief of the Thabaung Township forestry department, said: “The dead elephant we found was huge. So I assume the poachers are working in large numbers.”

The suspect will face charges for hunting wildlife and carrying weapons.

Police, army and forest guards are carrying out operations against elephant poachers in Thabaung, Ngaputaw and Pathein townships.

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Myanmar introduces elephant protection plan

Myanmar is stepping up efforts to protect its elephants with a new conservation project following a dramatic rise in poaching in recent years, officials said Thursday.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC) has finalized an elephant conservation plan -- the first such scheme for Myanmar, which has the world’s second largest Asian elephant population after India.

“The Myanmar Elephant Conservation Action Plan is very important to support the long-term survival of Myanmar’s elephants,” said Environment Minister Ohn Win said in a statement.

The plan includes legislation against killing elephants and a proposal to establish a registry of wild and domesticated elephants. It outlines ten-year priorities to safeguard the animals, including enlisting public help in controlling poaching and the trade in elephants and their parts.

According to government statistics, 133 elephants have been lost in Myanmar over the last seven years, including 61 to poachers. Last year saw the loss of 25 elephants.

“The urgency now for elephant conservation action is due to increasing killing for the illegal trade in ivory and parts,” Ohn Win said.

Around 2,000 wild Asian elephants and 6,000 used in the timber industry are under increased threat from poaching for ivory, elephant skin and other parts, as well as the capture of elephants for the live trade, the U.S-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said.

Simon Hedges, elephant coordinator with WCS, said the plan -- developed in collaboration with eight government departments and international conservation agencies -- is a significant achievement towards securing the future of Asian elephants in Myanmar.

“Habitat loss, poaching and human-elephant conflict are pressing threats to elephant conservation in Myanmar,” he said in a statement.

British non-profit EleAid group says poaching for ivory, meat and other parts is on a small scale in Myanmar. “However, poaching to capture elephant calves is known to be commonplace,” according to the organization’s website.

“The mother and often other members of the herd will fight to protect the calf and the hunters frequently resort to killing them. The calves are then smuggled in to Thailand for work in the tourist industry.”

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