Down To Earth speaks to Nurzhafarina Othman, a Malaysian elephant ecologist, on the little-known Borneo elephant
Borneo elephants on the Kinabatangan River, Sabah in Borneo, Malaysia. Photo: iStock
Nurzhafarina Othman is an elephant ecologist and senior lecturer at Universiti Malaysia Sabah, on the island of Borneo, which the country shares with Brunei and Indonesia. Othman has been working on the Borneo elephant for more than 15 years.
The Borneo elephant is a little-known type of elephant that is entirely found in Sabah, in the Malaysian part of the island. Its origins and status remain a subject of debate. Unfortunately, though, they may be preventing it from receiving the attention it deserves.
Since 2018, Othman and the group she founded, the Seratu Aatai, have focussed efforts to minimise the impact of human-elephant conflict on people and elephants by providing education and awareness to the local communities on the east coast of Sabah and also helping change attitudes, especially with stakeholders in the oil palm industry.
Down To Earth caught up with her while she was in Delhi recently and queried her on the challenges to conserve the Borneo elephant. Edited excerpts:
Rajat Ghai: What is the history of the Borneo elephant?
Nurzhafarina Othman: There are two hypotheses. One is that these elephants are a gift from the ruler of Java to the Sultan of Sulu. That is how they arrived in Sabah. The other theory is that they are native.
We did genetic studies on these elephants. The first one was in 2003. We repeated them in 2006. We have shown that these elephants have very low genetic diversity. And they have only one mitochondrial DNA, which means they come from only one single maternal line. This supports the hypothesis that they might be introduced.
However, as they have been on the island for so long, they have become genetically different from other elephants. We do not know if they came from mainland Asia or Java. That is hard for us to prove since we do not have any fossils.
Two years ago, a colleague of mine came across some elephant fossils in a Sarawak museum. Carbon dating showed that the fossils were a thousand years old. This supports the theory that elephants could have been native to the island of Borneo.
However, what matters today is that we have to conserve these animals, irrespective of whether they were native or introduced.
RG: What are the main threats facing Borneo elephants and the solutions to them?
NO: The biggest threats facing these elephants is conflict with humans. Conflict happens when the animals feed on newly planted oil palm trees.
After 25 years, most oil palm estates plant new trees. This is because old trees will not be economically viable after this period. They will not produce a lot of yield and will be hard to harvest. They are chopped down.
Elephants regularly pass through plantations. They love the middle part of the oil palm. They do feed on old trees when those are chopped. But this does not evince any reaction from farmers.
Trouble starts when new trees are planted. Any oil palm trees that are less than five years old are small and vulnerable. They are easier for the elephants to feed on.
The solution to this is to promote the idea that elephants need this landscape as many of their corridors pass through plantations, which were once forests. They can be peacefully diverted to use alternative routes.
My group is trying to educate locals about elephant behaviour. We are also helping with trained professionals who can use peaceful mitigation measures since we do not want the elephants to change their behaviour.
RG: Is the Borneo elephant overshadowed by African or mainland Asian elephants?
NO: Indeed, that is true. Not many people knew about Borneo elephants until the first academic paper on them was published in 2003.
A lot of people get to know about Borneo’s elephants because of the word ‘pygmy’ attached to them. Many think these animals are smaller than the average Asian elephant. They are surprised when they actually see that many adult males in Borneo are eight feet tall. So, they are not exactly ‘pygmy’.
The efforts of conservationists (including our group) have also helped and more people are getting to know about them. But we all have to do a lot more.
For a start, these elephants have to be included in the International Union for Conservation’s Red List so that people take their conservation efforts more seriously.
A lot of people have told me that Borneo elephants have no conservation value as they have been introduced. If that is the case, these elephants are indeed survivors as they are still extant even as elephants on other islands in the region such as Java have perished. They need to be saved.
We think that getting subspecies status for these elephants will attract government attention and funding which will help in their conservation.
RG: Are indigenous groups also involved in the efforts to save these elephants?
NO: While there is no evidence of these elephants featuring in the folklore of local tribes in Sabah, the indigenous peoples do respect them a lot. They usually use the term Aki (‘grandfather’) while referring to the elephants.
Having said that, the fact that elephants can raid the crops planted by indigenous farmers can also turn them against the animals.
RG: What is the latest estimate of Borneo elephant populations?
NO: The last estimation was done before 2010. At that time, it was estimated that there were about 1,500-2,000 elephants.
RG: Does the Malaysian government intend to conduct a fresh status of these elephants?
NO: Yes. The World Wide Fund for Nature has already done a re-estimation. But that did not cover the entire range. My group is currently studying a population of these animals called the Lower Kinabatangan.
We and others will soon start the exercise to estimate other populations. Hopefully, in the next two years, we will have latest numbers of the Borneo elephant in the whole of Sabah.
RG: What lies in store for Southeast Asia’s tropical forests, where the Borneo elephant resides, in the future?
NO: We have indeed lost a lot of tropical forests which cannot come back. There are a few places that are still intact. Like for instance the heart of Borneo. There is an agreement between the three countries that share the island of Borneo — Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei — to conserve this stretch of forest.
My concern for the future is what will become of this place when Indonesia moves its capital to Kalimantan in the future. Malaysia and other countries have not anticipated the impact the development will have.
Implementation of laws regarding conversion of forest to oil palm plantation is also lacking.
But since carbon credits are evincing interest, I hope it will lead to governments in the region taking up reforestation measures so that the remaining forests of Southeast Asia can be salvaged. But it will require intense and continuous efforts on part of everyone.
We are a voice to you; you have been a support to us. Together we build journalism that is independent, credible and fearless. You can further help us by making a donation. This will mean a lot for our ability to bring you news, perspectives and analysis from the ground so that we can make change together.
.png)
Comments are moderated and will be published only after the site moderator’s approval. Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name. Selected comments may also be used in the ‘Letters’ section of the Down To Earth print edition.