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The Human Elephant Harmony Project

The HEH program began in Telupid in 2016, convening workshops in the three villages experiencing elephant presence (Kg. Liningkung, Kg. Bauto, Kg. Gambaron), adding a fourth village (Kg. Telupid Batu 4) in 2018. The workshops and discussions with the relevant government agencies and NGO wildlife experts generated a four-fold plan which was agreed with the District Office and other stakeholders. This involved (a) the creation and training of a Community Elephant Ranger Team to transform interactions between elephants and people from conflict towards harmony; (b) identification of area/s where elephants could meet their needs in safety (the “elezone”); (c) the development of citizen science capacities in Telupid communities to understand elephants in this landscape in partnership with wildlife NGOs; and (d) the installation of electric fences in selected areas to protect vulnerable communities and their lands.

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The HEH Project proceeded to seek out members of the community who were interested in becoming members of the Community Elephant Ranger Team.  The team also carries a local name, Pisuladan di Yaki which means friendship between villagers and elephants in Dusun LabukThose who came forward were people who had already started to play these roles informally, or in voluntary roles with the Sabah Wildlife Department.  In February 2018 the National Conservation Trust Fund provided a 22-month grant of RM 200,000 to grow this program, co-financed by the United States Shared Earth Foundation (USD 65,000), and over the next two years the CERT Team has become a well-trained group of nine young professionals with a deep field knowledge of elephants.

Training and support have been received from Forever Sabah citizen science and mapping specialists (Dr. Casey Ng, Philip@Linggit Chin and Dr. Ken Wilson), Dr. Nurzhafarina Othman of Seratu Aatai and Hutan-KOCP and other specialists; and documentation and film training has been received from Suara/Borneo Eco Film Festival and Forever Sabah.  Five have graduated as Honorary Wildlife Wardens.  Detailed mapping of elephant use of the landscape, supplemented by collaring data from Danau Girang Field Centre, has led to the identification of potential “elezone” areas and pointed up the need to engage closely with the planning process of the Pan Borneo Highway to avoid highway construction along an elephant migration route and key feeding and refuge area in Tawai Forest Reserve.  We have worked closely with efforts to relocate this highway north of Tawai Protected Forest Reserve and are currently advancing details with the Sabah Government around re-routing this road outside of elephant range.

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With the assistance of an Oregon State University intern, Sadaqa Hamblin, the CERT team documented the scale of elephant damage in smallholder oil palm plantations, pointing up the need for some form of compensation.  In this process the CERT Team has come to realize that elephants need access to oil palm and oil palm estates to meet their food needs.  And we have spent years watching how elephants systematically track (through sound and smell) the machinery involved in clearing mature oil palm so that they can peacefully feed on chipped waste from the re-planting cycle.  We have seen that we need to work with elephants to make oil palm plantations safer for their food needs.

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The CERT have been actively sharing their stories among Sabahan and have completed some short films, and are gathering material for a proper documentary while learning at the same time.

Pilot visits for international tourists who want to see elephants were successfully conducted prior to the COVID Pandemic: we see that it is viable and that they are interested in our cultural connection to elephants, and about how elephants, being thoughtful and adaptive, can thrive with oil palm if humans can also learn how to interact with respect.

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Although CERT could not impact the location of the first electric fence in Kg. Gambaron, CERT was able to work with the Sabah Forestry Dept and community members in Kg. Bauto to find a more effective and manageable location for the second electric fence, and CERT has played a lead role in the maintenance of this fence with the community.

The CERT team have systematically physically presenced themselves in human-elephant encounters, which are normally around oil palm consumption, and have deescalated conflict while assisting elephants return to the forest, both through cultural-mediated “conversations” and through driving them to safety.  We have determined that there are about 25-50 elephants visiting Telupid as the most northernmost extent of the larger Central Sabahan elephant population.

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There has been no more attempted translocation of elephants from this area since the establishment of CERT.  We are seeing several baby elephants successfully raised in Telupid.  Although there are still many challenges, Phase One was a big success.

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Since 2020, CERT in collaboration with Seratu Aatai, HUTAN and Sabah Forestry Department, have conducted camera trap surveys of wildlife in the Tawai Forest Reserve. The surveys found 38 species of wildlife in the forest, in addition to Elephant and other rare and threatened wildlife species such as Orang Utan, Sunbear, Bornean Clouded Leopard and the Bornean Peacock Pheasant. This is only the third record for the Borneo Peacock Pheasant in Sabah since 1890, and scientist recently published that they believed it to be extinct in Sabah. The Tawai Forest camera traps highlighted both the biodiversity value of this forest and hence the need to relocate the Pan Borneo Highway, but they also spotlighted the level of poaching occurring in this fully Protected Area which the state has limited capacity to patrol. Although poachers rarely kill elephants for ivory in Sabah large numbers of especially younger elephants suffer injuries and death from snares left for wild pigs, deer and other species. Particularly pitiful are injuries to their trunk.

Current Understanding of the Issues and Theory of Change

CERT’s project experience over the last several years, combined with their citizen science and discussion with Sabah’s wildlife specialists have led to the following understanding of the issues we seek to tackle – from both the elephants’ point of view, and from the human point of view.  This is summarized in our three-year plan in the Table Below.

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The findings and strategies developed in this document map closely to the Bornean Elephant Action Plan for Sabah 2020-2029 developed through stakeholder engagement among government departments, NGOs and elephant specialists.

The experience of HEH and CERT since 2016 also led to the development of a Theory of Change for Phase II (2020-2023) that reflects all that we have learned about the issues and what a transformational change process would involve.

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This HEH Theory of Change aligns closely with principle actions proposed by the Bornean Elephant Action Plan for Sabah 2020-2029 for the Central Sabah Range, which include “Action 3: Create, train and support teams of ‘Community Elephant Rangers’ in villages affected by HECs to mitigate conflicts peacefully”, “Action 2: Identify all bottlenecks created by the Pan Borneo Highway or any other development project and that will jeopardize elephant connectivity, and propose adequate mitigation measures”, “Action 4: Create teams of HWW’s [Honorary Wildlife Wardens] who will support law enforcement agencies in the area” and “Action 6: Conduct joint anti-snaring operations with relevant enforcement agencies to remove snares in hotspot areas”.

Where the HEH program is particularly cutting edge is in the scale of its investment in a community-based organization, Kopisuladan di Aki, which LEAP/Forever Sabah hopes to graduate towards organizational independence, whilst it remains working closely programmatically with other NGOs, elephant specialists, government agencies and others in realizing its mission.  Secondly, and based on “listening” to the elephants through close observation, HEH concludes that access to oil palm will be key to elephant nutrition in these new landscapes, and therefore we will invest considerable effort in helping the plantations (small, medium and large) to embrace the presence of elephants feeding in their estates in ways that are safe for elephants and people, and allow the “exchange” of senescent oil palm for elephant manure/dung.  In other words, HEH is interested in more than just corridors between Forest Reserves, important as those are, and does not believe that confining elephants to Forest Reserves will lead to healthy populations.  There is risk for elephants outside of Reserves, but elephants are making the right judgment call when they enter the oil palm because reduced nutrition would likely have a worse impact on population dynamics (probably mainly by depressing their birthrate by delaying sexual maturity and lengthening birth interval) than does the current pattern and level of deaths on plantations.

The HEH Program meanwhile welcomes the opportunities to partner closely with Sabah’s other elephant conservation programs, with which it shares many goals and values.  Among other things we anticipate continued collaboration around reducing the threats of road development through the Humans Habitats Highways Coalition, we hope to continue to benefit from training, advice and other support from Seratu Aatai/Hutan KOCP, has collaborated with Danau Girang Field Centre on collaring elephants and camera traps.  The team has also discussed training and extension with WWF, with RESPECT around increasing elephant food supplies in Laju Cahaya, and with all parties in an emergent elephant conservation coalition around realizing the Bornean Elephant Action Plan and improving public understanding and conservation policy in Sabah.

Full implementation of Phase II will cost about $115,000/year.  We currently have some core support from The Shared Earth Foundation and from LEAP, a Sabahan NGO with a strong history of nurturing local conservation initiatives and institutions.  Seratu Aatai and Hutan has provided a small grant and technical support for camera trap use.  The Sabah Forestry Department has also allocated for our use their former timber extraction control point building which is located at a key point between the settled area of Telupid and the area used as a refuge by our elephant population.  Our intention is to use this building as a base for education, control and work.  Meanwhile, we are awaiting a decision on a second round of funding from Malaysia’s National Conservation Trust Fund (NTCF) at $60,000/year for two years. We will press through this work as and when resources become available. Please join us.

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