Can Humans and Elephants Coexist? A Review of the Conflict on Sumatra Island, Indonesia

Abstract

The high rate of deforestation and fragmentation of elephant habitat on Sumatra Island has triggered human-elephant conflict (HEC) in Sumatra Island, Indonesia. This conflict brings negative impacts on humans and elephants. Despite numerous efforts having been made to solve this problem, the HEC continues to occur in the remaining elephant enclave every year. The harmonious coexistence between humans and elephants could be improved through HEC mitigation programs. The aim of this paper was to review information on HEC in Sumatra Island, investigate the causes and implications of HEC, review existing HEC mitigation methods, and formulate strategies to improve the harmonious coexistence between humans and elephants. The best strategies to create successful human and elephant coexistence are strengthening the institutions and policies, restoring the habitat, developing wildlife corridors, establishing Essential Ecosystem Areas (EEA), community empowerment through ecotourism, providing legal access to forests through Social Forestry (SF), and providing compensation schemes for conflict victims.

Drivers of Three Most Charismatic Mammalian Species Distribution across a Multiple-Use Tropical Forest Landscape of Sumatra, Indonesia

“…Competition for land and resources is one problem that arises in line with development activities. Habitat narrowing and forest landscape dissolution are risky for the survival of the three mammal species, and this is further exacerbated by human–wildlife conflict incidents, which are increasingly prevalent [ 95 , 96 , 97 ].…”

Current and Future Approaches to Mitigate Conflict between Humans and Asian Elephants: The Potential Use of Aversive Geofencing Devices

“…Increasing cost of maintenance of the high number of captured problem elephants in captivity [ 110 ]…”

“…Creating or securing forested paths between elephant habitats with minimum human interference to reduce HEC incidents [ 110 ]…”

Assessing the impacts of local intention on community-based wildlife ecotourism in Tangkahan, Gunung Leuser National Park (GLNP) and the development strategy in the post- COVID-19 outbreak

“…Community-based ecotourism is a form of community-based resource management (CRBM) that carries the potential to solve many problems in protected forests, such as illegal logging, forest encroachment and human-wildlife conflicts [22,23]. The concept here is the devolution of rights and responsibility of forest management from government to community organization [24,25].…”

“…The concept here is the devolution of rights and responsibility of forest management from government to community organization [24,25]. Communitybased wildlife ecotourism management (CBWEM) has been promoted to conserve wildlife and protect the wildlife's natural habitat from human disturbances, improve local people's livelihood and provide environmental education to both tourists and local people [23,[26][27][28].…”