THE shrinking of the elephant habitant in the upper and lower Madaya forest reserves in Mandalay Region has prompted the forest authorities to take measures to protect wild elephants from poachers and prevent elephant-human conflicts in the region.
The expansion of teak plantations by hundreds of acres every year is the main reason behind the shrinkage of elephant habitat.
At present, teams comprising members of the Elephants Emergency Response Unit (EERU) and the authorities are patrolling forests at least twice per month to protect about 50 wild elephants and 20 domestic elephants.
In some instances, wild elephants have invaded fields owned by villagers for food. But, no elephant killings have been reported so far.
Awareness is being raised among local villagers to prevent conflict with elephants. Since the establishment of a forest outpost in 2018, there have been no wild elephant killings.
However, over the last seven years, 14 wild elephants have died in Mandalay Region either due to natural causes or poaching and some elephant deaths have been reported from other parts of Myanmar, leading to the decline in the country’s pachyderm population.
Larger animals are particularly vulnerable to humans as they are more frequently targeted and need much more wild space to survive.
The time has come to take radical action to protect wildlife and restore habitats to avoid their extinction in future.
Myanmar’s wild elephants will be wiped out unless we take action now. We would like to call upon individuals and organizations across all sectors to make efforts before our wild elephants are silenced forever.
Wildlife plays an important role in developing ecosystems on which we rely for food and clean water. If wildlife becomes extinct, we also would face a crisis.
Researchers estimate that more than 1,000 larger species of mammals and birds, ranging from rhinos to eagles, will become extinct in the next century.
We all should know their full role before we lose these big species.
Without them, things may begin to degrade quite quickly. Ecosystems could start to collapse and threaten our very survival.
