Chief of Bengkulu`s Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) Amon Zamora on Friday said the elephants also had its area surrounded by plantations and housing complexes. Such condition, he said, would trigger more elephants` attack toward human.
According to data from 2007-2009 there were 21 conflicts between elephants and local people in Indonesia which predicted to have caused a Rp500 million of material losses per year.
He suggested local government to extend the area of conservation from only 6,000 hectares to be 15,000 hectares. It could be done by uniting the existing conservation area with limited production forest near the conservation.
"We need to escalate the home area of those protected elephants. ideally, one elephant needs a 400 hectares of home area. Now if the existing elephants are predicted to reach the number of 80, they need 32,000 hectares of land to breed," Amon said.
(Uu.AO51/HAJM/A014/P003)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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