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Daily Express
24-05-2025
- General
- Daily Express
Government told to rethink Tawai route
Published on: Saturday, May 24, 2025 Published on: Sat, May 24, 2025 Text Size: Red line on map shows the proposed realighment of Pan Borneo cutting through the Tawai Forest Reserve. Green dots show elephant locations. Kota Kinabalu: A heart-wrenching incident on May 11 has brought renewed attention to the dangers Malaysia's road networks pose to wildlife, including in Sabah. A five-year-old male elephant calf was fatally struck by a 10-tonne lorry while attempting to cross the East-West Highway in the Belum-Temenggor Forest Reserve. The calf's mother remained by its side for five hours, desperately trying to rescue her offspring, in a scene that has since gone viral and sparked public outcry. Professor Benoit Goossens from Danau Girang Field Centre and Dr Nurzhafarina Othman from Seratu Aatai express their concerns and implore the Government to consider mitigation measures for the Tawai Forest Reserve alignment in Telupid, Sabah. 'This tragedy underscores the broader issue of human-wildlife conflict exacerbated by infrastructure development', said Goossens, from Cardiff University. 'In response, the Malaysian Government has announced plans to incorporate dedicated wildlife crossings into future highway designs to prevent similar incidents. Why not act now for the Pan Borneo Highway? 'I sincerely hope that it is not too late to do this for the proposed alignment in Telupid for which construction will start soon,' he added. Advertisement 'With Coalition Humans, Habitats, Highways (3H), we have emphasised for many years that road construction through wildlife habitats not only leads to fatal accidents but also increases the risk of poaching and habitat fragmentation,' said Dr Nurzhafarina, from Universiti Malaysia Sabah. The proposed Pan Borneo Highway alignment which cuts through the Tawai Forest Reserve would endanger the elephant population in the reserve as well as other protected species such as the Bornean orang-utan, the Sunda clouded leopard, the Malayan sun bear and the Bornean peacock pheasant. 'Events like the one on May 11 will definitely happen in Telupid if nothing is done,' added Dr Nurzhafarina. This incident in the peninsula serves as a poignant reminder of the urgent need to balance infrastructure development with wildlife conservation. 'It would be a shame if that poor baby elephant died in vain. We sincerely hope that mitigation measures could be implemented immediately, such as building dedicated wildlife crossings, or even better, viaducts at the two elephant hotspots that our research has identified. 'There is also a need to enforce speed limits and install warning signage and lighting to alert drivers of potential wildlife crossings. 'Finally, preventing heavy lorries to use the stretch crossing the forest reserve at night and force them to use the existing Telupid road, would limit the chance of dramatic accidents leading to human and wildlife casualties,' they said * Follow us on our official WhatsApp channel and Telegram for breaking news alerts and key updates! * Do you have access to the Daily Express e-paper and online exclusive news? Check out subscription plans available. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express's Telegram channel. Daily Express Malaysia
The Star
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Urgent need for wildlife protection measures on Tawai forest road, say conservationists
KOTA KINABALU: Appropriate wildlife protection measures are needed for the proposed Pan-Borneo Highway stretch that cuts through central Sabah's Tawai Forest Reserve in Telupid. Sabah conservationists said this was necessary, citing the incident where an elephant calf was killed along the East-West Highway in the Belum-Temenggor Forest Reserve. Conservationists from Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) Prof Benoit Goossens and Seratu Aaatai's Dr Nurzhafarina Othman reiterated their concerns and objections over road that cuts through the biodiversity rich Tawai Forest. Goossens said the incident underscores the broader issue of human-wildlife conflict exacerbated by infrastructure development. "The Malaysian government has announced plans to incorporate dedicated wildlife crossings into future highways to prevent similar incidents. "Why not act now for the Pan Borneo Highway?" he said, adding he hoped it would be done before construction for the proposed alignment starts. Goossens, said DIFC, which is part of the Humans, Habitats, Highways Coalition (3H), has been against the road cutting through Tawai forest reserve. Nurzhafarina said 3H had highlighted that roads through wildlife habitats not only leads to fatal accidents but also increases the risk of poaching and habitat fragmentation. "Events like the May 11 incident, will definitely happen in Telupid if nothing is done," she said. She said the proposed road would endanger the elephant population as well as other protected species such as the Bornean orangutan, Sunda clouded leopard, Malayan sun bear and the Bornean peacock pheasant in the forest reserve. "We sincerely hope that mitigation measures could be implemented immediately, such as building dedicated wildlife crossings – or even better – viaducts at two elephant hotspots our research has identified. "There is also a need to enforce speed limits and install warning signs and lighting to alert drivers of potential wildlife crossings. "Finally, preventing heavy lorries from using the stretch at night and force them to use the existing Telupid road would limit the chance of accidents leading to human and wildlife casualties," Goossens and Othman jointly said in a statement on Friday (May 23). In the May 11 accident, a five-year-old male elephant calf was killed when it was hit by a 10-tonne lorry along the East-West Highway in the Belum-Temenggor Forest Reserve. The incident caught national attention and sparked public outcry when viral videos showed the calf's mother staying by its side for five hours, in a futile attempt to rescue her offspring.
Daily Express
11-05-2025
- General
- Daily Express
No answers to the jumbo deaths
Published on: Sunday, May 11, 2025 Published on: Sun, May 11, 2025 Text Size: The endangered Borneo pygmy elephants must be protected to prevent their extinction. THREE pygmy elephants have been killed and decapitated in Sabah within three months of one another. Elephants deaths in Sabah have been on the rise since 2013, when 14 of the endangered pygmy elephants were discovered dead under suspicious circumstances in the state's Gunung Rara Forest Reserve. Since then, a total of 78 elephants have died as of 2024, and this month alone, those three deaths were reported. The deaths of these gentle, playful, baby-faced pygmy elephants with their large ears and long tails are believed to be caused by poisoning, shooting, snaring, poaching for ivory due to market demands, and deliberate retaliatory killings after the elephants entered fields and ate or trampled crops. Deforestation is the greatest hazard and primary driver of human elephant conflicts, as it causes habitat loss due to forest fragmentation. When elephants cannot find food in their normal habitats, which, nowadays, are generally pockets of intact forest surrounded by monocrop plantations, they will wander into oil palm or fruit plantations in their quest for sustenance. According to a June 2024 report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), whose Red List of animal species assesses their risk of extinction, elephants on Borneo Island have become endangered. The study discovered approximately 1,000 Bornean elephants only remaining in the wild rather than the 1,500 previously estimated by government officials and experts. The Bornean elephant is now on the IUCN's Red List of threatened animals. If we do not want to lose these gentle animals, serious action must be taken. Unless there is effective monitoring and enforcement of the laws, tough wildlife regulations and harsh consequences, including hefty fines and imprisonment, the elephant killers are going to continue killing. Except for the arrest of six individuals and their subsequent sentencing on July 14, 2021, the deaths of elephants in the past and present remain unsolved. Above all, as long as there is no effective enforcement on the ground, harsh warnings and incentives will be ineffective. Since Sabah's well-known Kalabakan route has essentially become a hunting highway for hunters, have night patrols been put in place along the route? Are there patrols in the surrounding jungle? Development of highways not only allow hunters access to ivory hunting and poaching, they also threaten the elephants' habitats. Road construction in elephant territories has historically led to an increase in poaching, says Prof Benoit Goossens, director of Sabah research facility Danau Girang Field Centre, who is also a member of the Humans Habitats Highways group (3H), a coalition of environmental and conservation organisations focused on the impact of infrastructure development on wildlife. CAP, with other conservationists, urges the government and relevant authorities to re-evaluate highway alignments and instead develop alternate routes that avoid disrupting key elephant habitats. Finally, strengthening law enforcement is crucial. This necessitates effective patrolling by law enforcement personnel such as park rangers and the deployment of deep forest patrol teams utilising technology like drones and camera traps. The endangered Borneo pygmy elephants must be protected to prevent their extinction. Mohideen Abdul Kader President Consumers' Association of Penang The views expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Express. If you have something to share, write to us at: [email protected]
