Human-Elephant conflict and their mitigation techniques in Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency

. Conflict between elephants and humans occurs almost every year in Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency, Riau Province. This study aims to determine the characteristics of Human-Elephant conflict in Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency and its mitigation techniques. Data collection was carried out by purposive sampling. Purposive sampling was conducted by interviewing respondents who had experienced conflicts with elephants. Based on the interviews results, the Human-Elephant conflict occur almost every year where in the 2000s there were many conflicts between elephants and humans and now in 2021 and 2022 there is a decline in elephant-human conflicts. This is because the elephants in Pinggir District have moved to other locations such as the Giam Siak Kecil enclave. The results of the interview also informed that only certain locations experienced conflict between elephants and humans, especially the paths that were often traversed by elephants. Mitigation techniques that are mostly done by the community in dealing with conflicts with elephants are the sounds of using firecrackers and cannons, evictions and gardening by the community and making elephant trenches for people who have strong capital.


Introduction
Conflict is the difference in values and interests between the two parties towards a problem [1,2].Conflict can also be interpreted as a negative interaction between two parties.Wildlife conflict with humans is a negative interaction between humans and wild animals that have the same interests at the same time at the same location and place.Based on the Regulation of the Minister of Forestry Number: P. 48/Menhut-II/2008 concerning Guidelines for Handling Conflicts between humans and wild animals occur as a result of several negative interactions, both direct and indirect between humans and wild animals, it is hoped that the policy will be able to achieve the objectives.
The high-intensity wildlife conflict that occurs in Riau Province is the conflict between elephants and humans.This conflict occurs because elephants have a wide range of areas.Human conflict with elephants, especially Sumatran elephants will have a direct impact on humans and elephants.The direct impact on humans is in the form of losses caused by damage to cultivated plants, damage to crop yields, damage to infrastructure and water sources, disturbance and death of livestock, injuries and deaths [3], while for elephants, this animal can be injured and/or killed by humans [4].
Human and wildlife conflicts occur because of disturbances, threats or discomfort caused by animals due to actions related to ecosystem imbalances, especially due to forest or habitat damage [5].Several factors cause conflicts between humans and wild animals such as cultivation in forest areas, both old and new, illegal logging in several forest areas, expansion of plantation land by companies and communities without paying attention and considering the presence of wild animals in the area.The unavailability of sufficient food for the survival of wild animals in the forest and the clearing of forest areas for plantations are also factors that cause conflicts between wildlife and humans.
Activities to develop strategies for mitigating elephant-human conflicts require identification of the typology of conflicts between elephants and humans.This study aims to identify the types of conflict between elephants and humans where the background of the conflict, factors causing conflict and types of conflict between elephants and humans can be identified in the villages around Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency, Riau Province.

Methodology
The research was conducted in two villages around Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency, Riau Province.The following are the research locations around Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency, Riau Province (Figure 1).The data collected are secondary data and primary data.Secondary data is obtained from reports on the results of previous research and related agencies covering various types of maps and other secondary data; while the primary data is obtained through field observations.The secondary data needed in this study include land use maps, forest area maps and elephant distribution maps.The number of respondents as many as 10 people who had conflict with the elephant.Determination of respondents was carried out purposively based on the consideration of knowing information about conflicts between elephants and humans and what to do in dealing with conflicts.The selected respondents are people who own land around forest areas whose crops are threatened with crop failure due to being attacked by wild elephants.
Community perception data were collected through interviews with a questionnaire guide.The questionnaire contains a variety of information including gender, age, ethnicity, education level, community occupation level, factors causing human-elephant conflict, the intensity of conflict, community perceptions of elephant conflict both positively and negatively.Data analysis was carried out descriptively and process data analysis in the field using a deductive model (quantitative approach) based on the facts found in the field [6].

Results and discussion
Based on the results of interviews with communities in the two villages, it can be seen in Table 1.The results of interviews with the community also show that the favorite commodity of the people of Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency is rubber where elephants passing through community plantations eat rubber plants.What elephants eat shows the commodities grown by the community.Based on the explanation of the elephant community passing in their garden area, they will eat the plants that are available for elephants to eat.In addition, the community explained that the agricultural crops that elephants really liked were bananas planted on community land which were interludes.Regency is set as one of the goals is to protect and preserve Sumatran elephants.Based on the result of interviews about the conflict can be seen in Table 2.The opening of forest areas in Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency is the impact of the population who started living around the area and within the Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency area.These residents are migrants from outside the area who have started clearing forests in the Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency area to be used as an oil palm plantation.The location of the conflict can be seen in Table 3.

Factors causing conflict
The main factor in the occurrence of conflicts between elephants and humans, especially in the Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency Pocket, is the destruction of elephant habitat, namely the forest in Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency.The results showed that the reason for the arrival of elephants was because the number of people increased.The forest loss in Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency is due to encroachment and conversion of forest areas.The area that was previously forested as a roaming area for elephants has now turned into an area of oil palm plantations, settlements and also agricultural land.
Based on secondary data, it is known that the forest area in Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency continues to decrease from year to year.This shows that there is a serious threat to the habitat of the Sumatran elephant in Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency.If proper efforts are not made to deal with the degradation of elephant habitat, the Elephant-Human conflict will continue to occur and will even threaten the lives of elephants in particular.
Changes in forest cover in Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency can lead to fragmentation of elephant habitat (habitat fragmentation).Fragmentation causes extensive and sustainable habitats to be reduced or divided into two or more small parts (fragments) [7].This habitat fragmentation causes elephants to be trapped in small blocks that are not able to support their home range and food needs.
Elephants and humans both have an interest in the existing area.Humans have an interest in doing agriculture, plantations, development and so on.Elephants have an interest in being able to meet their food needs and survival on land that is also managed by humans.This causes competition for land use by both elephants and humans themselves.Moestrup et al stated that forest shrinkage can lead to competition in the use of space between humans and wild animals [8].This has the potential for human-elephant conflict because the elephant's home range collides with land managed by both the community and the company.
In addition to habitat narrowing and overlapping land use, other factors are considered to be one of the factors supporting the occurrence of elephant disturbances at the research location, namely the elephant's preference for plants managed by the community.Based on the results of surveys and interviews conducted with the community, the types of plants that were damaged the most by elephants were oil palm and rubber.According to Sugiyanto et al, the palatability of wild animals to a type of plant is one of the factors that cause wildlife conflicts with Lubuk Kembang Bungo [9].

The process of conflict
The Sumatran elephant is a wild animal that likes to wander.Elephants rarely stay in a limited place, their lives are always moving from one place to another to get food.At this time the elephant continues to explore its home range to get food.If the availability of food in the habitat is not sufficient to meet their needs, the elephants will move to look for food in other areas around their habitat.This condition has the potential to cause conflict in locations around the habitat [10].
The elephant's effort to meet their food needs is to visit community gardens/land.According to Umar, the owner of the land whose crops were damaged by elephants, the arrival of these elephants always caused damage to the community's gardens and crops, as a result they were angry and upset because they suffered losses for the damage.This continues to happen during the arrival of the elephants, thereby increasing the public's anger and anger.This anger led to anarchic actions by some people to kill elephants.
In addition, based on the results of interviews obtained from the community regarding the arrival time of elephants, it shows that elephant animals come to their garden area at night because at night no one is guarding the community garden and when they go to the garden during the day elephant animals are already in the plantation area.they.Based on interviews with the community, it also shows that elephants come and arrive in their garden area during the rainy season.
Based on interviews with the community, the reason why elephants enter their garden area is that the forest area is getting less/depleted.In addition, as large as the community stated that the cause was the increasing number of people who urged people to clear land, causing the elephant's feed to decrease and the elephant's roaming path to becoming narrow.Elephants are forced out to pass through community garden areas due to natural factors such as flooding, which causes elephants to change lanes and seek higher shelters to avoid flooding.
The number of elephants entering the community garden area varies based on the number of elephants per group, where groups of elephants entering the community garden area are 1-3 individuals.The community stated that more than 3 elephants entered their garden area and there was also 1 elephant that entered their area.
According to Jogasara conflicts between humans and wildlife tend to increase.Whatever happens and what kind of wildlife is involved, human-wildlife conflict is a complex issue because it is not only related to the safety of humans but also the animals themselves [11].It is at this time that the Elephant continues to explore his home range to get food.For this reason, elephants need a large daily intake of food and a large area of habitat.If the availability of food in the habitat is not sufficient to meet their needs, these wild animals move to look for food in other areas around their habitat.This condition has the potential to cause conflict with the location around the habitat.This real reduction in elephant habitat is due to the change in elephant habitat to monoculture plantations (palm and rubber) which have displaced the Sumatran elephant habitat.In addition, this has also made the elephant trapped in small blocks of forest that are not sufficient to support the elephant's life in the long term, on the other hand this is also the trigger for conflict between humans and elephants.
According to the results of interviews with the community, nowadays people think that elephant conflict in their area has become a common thing.So that people tend to surrender and only make efforts to evict and overcome so that the damage that occurs in their gardens and land is not too severe.The community cannot do much in dealing with the elephant problem.On the one hand, they are very disadvantaged economically because their crops are being destroyed by a herd of elephants.On the other hand, they must comply with the law that elephants are highly protected animals under the law.They will even be subject to sanctions if they are proven to have attempted to kill an elephant.
Conflicts between elephants and humans occur along with the clearing and conversion of forests for plant cultivation areas by humans.The root of the problem is the overlap of the cultivated area with the elephant track.Cases of conflict between elephants and humans also cause losses for both parties.
In humans, the losses that arise are in the form of damage to cultivated plants, cottages/houses and human lives (can be seen in the data on human deaths due to elephant attacks).While for elephants, the losses that arise can be in the form of the death of the elephant and the loss of habitat and elements of the habitat.Elephant deaths can be triggered by killings committed by the community either by shooting or by poisoning (directly).The death of elephants can also be due to reduced food sources so that competition arises (indirectly).Or also the death that occurs after the elephant is captured or relocated.The following is the number of elephants that died from 2004-2016.This can be caused by various things, ranging from public awareness of mitigating conflicts between elephants and humans, the functioning of the elephant flying squad and the role of the Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency in mitigating conflicts between elephants and humans.

Typology of Elephant-Human conflict
Based on research conducted in two villages, namely Semunai and Pinggir Village, it can be seen that there are 4 typologies of the Elephant-Human conflict.There are 4 types of conflict typologies, namely: elephants destroying plants/vegetation, elephants destroying community houses and huts, elephants attacking/injuring humans and humans injuring/killing elephants.The following is a typology of the conflict between elephants and humans that occurred around Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency.

Elephants Damage Plants
Attempts by elephants to destroy crops are basically because elephants need food to meet their daily needs.This is done by the elephants because the amount of feed available in the Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency area has become increasingly critical and is no longer sufficient for their food needs.According to Susetyowati, the need for food for adult elephants reaches 200-300 kg/day while the need for drinking water is around 200 litters/day.The amount of food for elephants in their habitat is decreasing due to competition and changes in land cover due to encroachment by the community.This condition causes elephants to try to meet their food needs by eating plants belonging to the community, where most people plant oil palm, which is one of the plants favored by elephants.Elephant attacks on cultivated plants can be divided into attacks by single elephants and group elephants.This difference can be seen from the scale of the attack/area attacked, the frequency of attacks, the duration of the attack and the level of damage.Types of damage to oil palm plantations due to elephant attacks based on findings in the field: -Minor damage, this type of damage category is based more on plant recovery in a short time and can grow normally again.The characteristics of this mild damage are the midrib skinned, shoots eaten (< 30% attacked).-Moderate damage, the category of this type of damage is based on the plant will die slowly and even if it grows its growth will not be normal or produce less fruit than it should.Characteristics of this type of damage are damage to nearly 50% of the plant and root uprooted, slanted trees (< 70% attacked).-Severe damage, the category of this type of damage is based on plants that die within a few days.Characteristics of this type of damage are eaten grass and fallen plants and uprooted from the ground (> 80% attacked) From the results of the field survey, not all of the community's plants are eaten by elephants, sometimes they just break them like rubber plants that are 3-4 years old.Table 5 shows the types of vegetation and the extent damaged by elephants from 2022 in Semunai Village and Pinggir Village.Based on Table 5, it can be seen that the largest damage to plants/vegetation occurred in oil palm plantations which reached 3.5 Ha.This shows that elephants like oil palm plants as one of their foods.The results of research by Jogasara in Pinggir Village and Balai Makam Village, the plants most damaged by elephants are oil palm plants, especially those between 2-3 years old [11].According to the community, elephants like the young shoots of oil palm to be used as food.The relatively young age of oil palm plants is more easily damaged by elephants, this is because young oil palm plants (less than 5 years) are not too tall and make it easier for elephants to eat their young shoots.Furthermore, Table 5 shows data on elephants entering the area around Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency and damage to community gardens due to elephant attacks.

Elephants destroy community huts and houses
In addition to destroying plants, elephants also damage community-owned cottages and houses, especially cottages and houses located in the garden area where the elephants walk.This incident generally occurs when the cottage/house is abandoned by the owner.According to the community, the purpose of elephants destroying community-owned huts and houses is to look for pickled foods such as (salt, rice, cooking oil, etc.).This is following the statement of Purnama, that elephants have a habit of eating materials containing salts such as Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), Potassium (K) and other salts which are commonly known as saltlick [12].The huts that were damaged by the elephants were community huts that were used for guarding their crops, storing agricultural tools, resting places, and also functioned as temporary homes for the community when they worked their land.According to the community, the methods of destruction carried out by elephants vary, some use their bodies to knock down huts, some use their trunks and some use their feet.In general, when elephants do damage, people are not in the hut so there are no casualties.

Elephants hurt people
Attacks by elephants on humans are usually triggered by unpleasant actions against elephants, such as attempts to evict elephants that are active in community gardens.Elephants are angry because they feel disturbed by the evictions carried out by the community.Jogasara, states that elephant attacks against humans are often caused by land owners trying to drive/repel elephants out of plantation/agricultural areas by making fires to provoke the elephants' anger which causes physical conflicts which often cause human casualties [11].
According to public information, the cause of elephants attacking humans is due to unpleasant actions against elephants, such as: rebuking them, saying bad words and so on.In addition, people think that elephants have strong memories and instincts, so they know who has done something unpleasant to them.No cases were found where an innocent community who did not disturb the elephants was suddenly attacked by a herd of elephants.This also shows that elephants only come to meet their needs and make no attempt to attack humans.

Humans hurt/kill elephants
The arrival of a herd of elephants to community land which always causes damage and losses causes people to be upset and angry so that people try to take firm action against the elephant's actions.Steps taken by several communities in overcoming elephant disturbances are by making attempts to kill elephants.The killing of elephants is not always by physical contact with elephants but by poison mixed with elephant food.As the results of research by Jogasara, in Mandau and Pinggir sub-Districts, it was proven that elephant deaths were not only caused by physical contact between humans and elephants, but also due to poison mixed with elephant feed [11].According to the community, the poison is mixed with fruits that elephants like, such as pineapples and watermelons.The fruit is then placed on the path crossed by the elephant.
Elephant deaths are often used by certain people to take elephant tusks which are very expensive.Conflicts in the form of hunting for wild elephants occur because elephant ivory has a fairly high economic value (selling value).In addition, the thing that encourages hunting and killing of elephants is the disturbance caused by these animals to land owned by the community [13].According to information from Rinaldi (BBKSDA) there were several cases encountered by the BBKSDA where elephants were found dead in a condition without tusks, however, the BBKSDA never found the perpetrators who took the elephant tusks.This is because there is no cooperation from the community in providing information to the government.
According to public information, information about the elephant's death was received very slowly by the Riau government/BBKSDA, so that when the officers came down to the field, the elephant was already in a rotting condition and even lost its tusk.In some cases of elephant deaths, the community tends not to be open in providing information about the causes of elephant deaths, so many cases are not processed until the legal shirt.According to Umar, people are reluctant to deal with the government in the case of elephant deaths, because they feel that the government is only responding to cases of elephant deaths.If there are victims from the human side such as: injuries, deaths or suffering losses, the government tends to be less firm in responding to them.

Conclusion
Based on the results, the background of the conflict between humans and elephants was due to the clearing of forest areas into plantations.The cause of conflict between elephants and humans is the reduction of elephant habitat both in terms of area and quality of habitat, while the typology of this conflict is elephants destroy crops and community property, humans kill elephants.
This research was supported by the Institute for Research and Community Service of Riau University by agreement Number 1494/UN.19.5.1.3/PT.01.03/2022.The authors say many thanks.

Table 1 .
Community assessment of the causes and processes of conflict.

Table 2 .
The years of conflict.

Table 3 .
Location of the conflict.

Table 4 .
Typology of conflict between elephants and humans in Pinggir District, Bengkalis Regency

Table 5 .
Types of plants/vegetation damaged by elephants.