It is very easy for Westerners to pass judgement on those living in the more remote but biodiversity-rich areas of Asia. We see it as black and white that deforestation is bad, that it must be stopped, and that those involved in clearing great swathes of our precious rainforest are bad people. But for those who actually live in places such as Indonesia, things are not so easy, as logging activity provides many poor people with the only source of income they have to live on.

Retraining

A group in northern Sumatra has found a solution that should please all parties by providing former illegal logging workers with a new eco-friendly profession. The Tangkahan elephant project is retraining the loggers as elephant trainers.

$1 Billion Deal

The Indonesian government will be happy to see such proactive projects arising, as the country will be coming under close scrutiny from many conservation groups following their $1 billion deal with Norway to stop deforestation. While this will obviously provide a huge boost to the country’s biodiversity, many Indonesian people will fear that they will struggle for jobs without logging companies to work for.

Perfect Model

The Tangkahan elephant project is an almost perfect model for the kind of project that will help to take the country forward following the high-profile deal.  The project is mixing conservation with eco-tourism. Foreign tourists who visit the site help wash elephants or can go on a four day patrol with the elephants to monitor the state of the forest and check for any illegal activity.

Sustainable

Sustainable industries such as this are crucial for conservation to actually work in countries such as Indonesia. Industries like this give a reason for local people to protect and conserve their biodiversity rather than exploiting it.

What makes the Tangkahan elephant project especially ingenious is that with time it should provide even more benefits to the local elephant populations. Not only have the elephants now got a much more comprehensive protection force against poachers, but by having people work closely with the animals, their attitudes towards the elephants should change.

Changing attitudes

While loss of habitat is the main cause of falling elephant populations, human-elephant conflict is also a significant factor. But learning more about the animals and how to live alongside them, the number of elephants killed each year by poisoning, beating or trapping should be greatly reduced.

We can only hope that more areas of Indonesia take note of the good work being done here.  Testimonies such as this from 30-year-old Rutkita Sembiring demonstrate the good that can come for the people of Indonesia as well as the wildlife:

He first began illegally harvesting timber from the nearby forest when he was 19.

Rutkita Sembiring says unlike large-scale illegal logging operations they only had a small team of eight people.

“We had to select the best log, predict the price, we preferred the logs closest to the river so it’s easier to bring to the city to sell them,” he said.

He says the threat of law enforcement and a growing concern for the forest helped change his mind about logging.

But when he switched jobs to look after elephants in 2002 he took a big pay cut.

He used to earn a $1,000 a month, now he is down to $130 a month.

“We got a lot of money but it was easy come, easy go and we don’t feel as happy as we do working with the elephants and protecting the forest.”