Deadly attacks shed light on Indonesia's human-animal conflicts

Agence France Presse
January 28, 2009


BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP) — A spate of recent deadly animal attacks in Indonesia has thrown the spotlight on growing conflicts between humans and animals triggered by the rapid dwindling of the country's forests.
In the latest attack, two women were trampled to death by a pair of elephants in Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra island Tuesday after the elephants entered an illegally cleared field from nearby jungle.
The attack, from which another six villagers narrowly escaped with their lives, came just days after a rubber-tapper was reportedly killed by two rare Sumatran tigers as he urinated outside his hut in Jambi province, also on Sumatra.
The attacks are called human-animal conflicts, and they are a rising problem in Indonesia, an archipelago nation with some of the world's largest remaining tropical forests and a swelling population of 234 million people.
As people spread into previously untouched forests, big animals such as tigers, elephants and orangutans are being robbed of the large habitats needed to sustain their populations, Arnold Sitompul, the head of environmental group Elephant Forum, told AFP.

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