The Tesso Nilo Conservation Landscape%2c Sumatra%2c Indonesia

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The Tesso Nilo Conservation

Landscape, Sumatra, Indonesia

Fifty years ago, Sumatra was covered by millions of hectares of rainforest that reached across

the entire length of the island. Today, the lowland rainforests are almost entirely gone,

converted to oil palm and pulp wood plantations and replaced by agriculture. A few forest

tracts still exist in Sumatra's central province of Riau. One of them, the Tesso Nilo forest, has

one of the highest vascular plant diversities known to science and is one of the few remaining

safe havens for the threatened Sumatran elephant. WWF aims to halt the rapid destruction of

the 188,000-hectare Tesso Nilo forest. Together with an alliance of local and international

non-governmental organizations WWF tries to secure Tesso Nilo within a 3 million ha

conservation landscape that would be anchored by four additional protected areas, Bukit

Bungkuk, Bukit Rimbang Baling, Bukit Tigapuluh, and Kerumutan. WWF is implementing

plans that would protect the remaining forests and their wildlife through re-zoning andimproved law enforcement, and that would benefit local communities through reduced

conflicts with elephants and tigers, increased yields from their agricultural enterprises, and

new employment opportunities. This conservation landscape contains montane, lowland, and

peat swamp habitats that are among the few remaining homes for the Sumatran elephant, the

Sumatran tiger and many others of Sumatras spectacular wildlife species.

WWF Indonesia became active in the Tesso Nilo Conservation Landscape (Fig. 1) in 1993 when

it asked for the establishment of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park. The park was declared in 1995

and WWF has been involved in community development and/or tiger protection programs there

ever since. In February 1999, WWF started promoting the Tesso Nilo Forest as a safe haven forone of Sumatra's dwindling elephant populations under the WWF Asian Rhino and ElephantAction Strategy (AREAS) Program. In March 2001, a workshop of over 250 stakeholders from

all layers of society voiced overwhelming support for the protection of the Tesso Nilo forest asan elephant forest. In May 2001 and again in May 2002, WWF and Indonesias national

conservation authorities (Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation at the

Indonesian Ministry of Forestry) proposed Tesso Nilo as a national park. Until today, heavylobbying by the timber industry has kept the Indonesian government from declaring Tesso Nilo a

protected area. Tesso Nilo would be part of a 3 million ha conservation landscape that would

represent a cross-section of some of Sumatra's most important habitats, from montane forests inthe west via lowland forests to peat swamp forests in the east. Wildlife corridors would allow the

elephants and tigers secured in the park to move freely between reserves, including Kerumutan,Rimbang Baling and Bukit Bungkuk Wildlife Reserve and Bukit Tigapuluh National Park (Fig.2). Re-establishing all corridors will not be easy, but surveys have shown that it could be

possible through forest rehabilitation and redesign of existing acacia and oil palm plantations.

WWF is promoting the protection of the Tesso Nilo forest as a national park in a complex matrixof negotiations with communities; government at all levels; and several logging, pulp-and-

paper, and oil palm companies, and their investors and customers around the globe. Two


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North

Sumatera

West

Sumatera

Jambi

Riau

SINGAPORE

%[Pekanbaru

Tesso NiloTesso Nilo

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multinational pulp-and-paper conglomerates operating there are heavily in debt, following a

dramatic expansion of their facilities in a time of falling pulp prices. Only when the oversizedmills run at capacity do the companies have a remote chance to service their debt. About 70% of

their pulp is made with wood from the areas mixed tropical hardwood forests. Only a small

fraction of the pulp is produced with plantation wood, and even these plantations not long ago

were natural forests with some of the highest plant diversities on the planet. The companies needthe wood as they failed to secure adequate supplies from own plantations when they expanded

their mill capacities.

Central and Southern Sumatra moist forestsCentral and Southern Sumatra montane forestsMentawai Islands moist forestsNorth Sumatra - Nicobar Islands moist forestsNorthern Sumatra limestone forestsNorthern Sumatra montane forestsPeninsular Malaysia freshwater swamp forestsPeninsular Malaysian moist forests

Peninsular Malaysian montane forestsSumatra freshwater swamp forestsSumatra eat swam forests

Fig. 1.The Tesso Nilo Conservation Landscape touches the Sumatran montane (blue), moist

(green) and peat swamp (purple) eco-regions.

In its search for wood, the RGM/APRIL conglomerate began clear-cutting in Tesso Nilo, thenearest surviving forest block to their mill. The clearing started in July 2001 after WWF had

proposed the Tesso Nilo forest as a protected area. After negotiations with WWF and Friends ofthe Earth, the company stopped the clear-cutting and issued a temporary logging moratorium for

the Tesso Nilo core forest. In August 2002, APRIL committed to no longer purchase any timber

sourced from Tesso Nilo and to close its ferry operations, one of the main exit roads from TessoNilo, to trucks carrying illegal logs.

Tesso Nilo actually is a perfect example of the usual cycle of forest destruction in Indonesia:First, a company applies to government for a license to selectively log an area ( e.g. Hutani Sola

Lestari, co-owned by RGM). It then exports the timber or supplies saw or plywood mills (e.g.

RGMs mill near Pekanbaru, Riau). The logging is well regulated. Indonesia's forestmanagement system theoretically allows the forest 35 years to recover. However, somecompanies intentionally overlog an area. An application is then submitted to government for thearea to be declared a so-called wasteland that is no longer fit to be a forest and can be

converted to plantations. Government officials often allow such a change of status, and a sister

company of the original logging firm applies for the license to convert that new "wasteland"

forest to either oil palm (e.g. RGM co-owned Indosawit) or acacia pulp wood plantation (e.g.

RGM co-owned APRIL which now operates acacia plantations on former Hutani Solar Lestari


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concessions). Whichever plantation it will be, the remaining trees are removed and go to a pulp

mill, more often than not, yet another member of the same conglomerate (e.g. RGM co-owned

RAPP). Then either oil palm or acacia plantations are established, the products of which go to the

respective mills. At current rates of destruction, a World Bank study estimated that most ofSumatra's lowland forests will have disappeared by 2005!

recently cleared areasopened forestclosed forestgrass, shrubshort-term cropsmixed tree gardenrice fieldsoil palm plantationrubber plantationacacia plantationsettlementswater bodies

recently cleared areasopened forestclosed forestgrass, shrubshort-term cropsmixed tree gardenrice fieldsoil palm plantationrubber plantationacacia plantationsettlementswater bodies

BukitBungkukReserve

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KerumutanWildlife

Sanctuary

BukitRimbangBalingWildlifeSanctuary

Proposed Tesso NiloProtected Area

Bukit TigapuluhNational Park with

potential no-conversionbuffer zone

Fig. 2. Land use in Tesso Nilo Conservation Landscape in 2001, with one proposed and

four existing reserves, remaining wildlife corridors and their breaks in connectivity, and one

newly to be created elephant corridor.

The 3 million ha Tesso Nilo Conservation Landscape would link prime habitats of two ofSumatra's flagships species: the severely endangered Sumatran tiger and the threatened Sumatranelephant. It would provide them with habitat large enough to maintain viable populations in a

network of protected areas. WWFs Asian Rhino and Elephant Action Strategy (AREAS) came

to Riau because its elephant population was dwindling. Elephant habitats were becoming moreand more fragmented. Elephants were invading people's fields and plantations and were being

killed or captured as a result. In May 2002, a herd of 17 elephants was poisoned in a community

oil palm plantation. Herds of sometimes five or ten elephants are being captured and the few who


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manage to survive the ordeal spend the rest of their life in camps. Tesso Nilo's stakeholders,

from the communities living in the area up to the local and regional authorities, called for theforest to be protected because a secure forest home would help preclude the worsening human-

elephant conflict.

Fig. 3.-- Riau Governments 2015 proposed land use vision for the Tesso

Nilo Conservation Landscape. Green are

natural forests, blue are acacia pulp wood

plantations, yellow are oil palm

plantations. To produce this vision, the

protection status of each block of natural

forest was zoned down, e.g. selective

logging forest would become eligible for

conversion to plantations, protection forest

would become selective logging forest, etc.

Supporters of a Tesso Nilo National Park, including local farmers, expect WWF to develop a

comprehensive human-elephant conflict (HEC) mitigationstrategy for Tesso Nilo and possibly

even for the whole province of Riau. WWF believes that the best HEC mitigation strategy is tofirst secure as much elephant forest as possible and then reduce HEC at the interface between

forest and agricultural lands. WWF is developing an HEC masterplan that suggests the

establishment of professionally trained elephant chase teams (short-term), the building offence/trench elephant barriers (mid-term), and a change in land use that would locate acacia

plantations rather than oil palm plantations next to natural forest (long-term). WWF is workingclosely with communities and the major plantation companies in Tesso Nilos buffer zone to

bring about these changes. The response so far has been very positive.

In 2002, WWF decided to fully integrate tiger conservation activities with the ongoing elephant

and forest protection programme in this

landscape. Surveys had shown that dozens of

tigers had been killed in the area since 1998and that an increasing number of people were

being killed by tigers. Human-tiger conflict

was developing into a major issue.

Main Issues

Forest conversion is the ultimate threat to

all natural forests in the Tesso Nilo

Conservation Landscape. Once converted

the forest is gone forever. Conversion isdriven by two main factors at this time:

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The desperate need of two of the world's biggest pulp mills to generate cash. They need to

feed their shredders with natural wood because they do not have enough plantation wood and because natural wood is cheaper than any other fiber source available to produce pulp.

The desire of people to easily generate regular income from oil palm plantations. The only

land cheaply available is natural forest.

Rampant and un-regulated logging is a

severe threat to the integrity of the forests.While WWFs biodiversity surveys have

shown that even heavily logged sections of

Tesso Nilo have a species composition similarto that of the original forests, only immediate

protection would give these forests the time to

grow back to close to their original state.Logging is driven by one main factor at this

time:It is the easiest way to make money in a time

when the country's regulatory and enforcement system is in total disarray and standing trees arethe most readily available resource that can be converted to cash.

Human Elephant Conflictis the single biggest

direct cause of elephant mortality and the

resulting decline of elephant populations. It isdriven by two main factors at this time:

Dramatic reduction of habitat that has left

elephants with not enough natural food and the

need to search for food in agricultural andplantation areas.

Planting of highly palatable agricultural or

plantation crops next to forests that pull elephants out of the forest for feeding even thoughthere might be enough natural food left in the forest.

Tiger poaching and revenge killings are the most

important threat to the remaining tiger population.The illegal killings are driven by:

High market prices for illegally killed tigers and a law

enforcement system that does not discourage poachers

from repeated offences.


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Dramatic reduction of habitat that has left tigers with not enough natural food and the need to

search for food in agricultural and plantation areas, where they are more likely to encounterpeople.

Immediate Objectives

The fast pace of land use changes has prompted these main objectives to save the Tesso Nilo

Forest and its elephants and tigers.

Prevent any further conversion of forest towasteland, or to any type of plantation or

agriculture.

That would save the forest.

Reduce the selective felling of trees.

That would allow the forest to recover to closeto its original primary state.

Change the land use pattern so crops thatelephants like are not planted next to the forest.

That would make it less attractive for elephantsto raid the crops and get killed in the process.

Introduce non-removal Human-Wildlife Conflict mitigation techniques in the agricultural

landscape.That would result in fewer elephants and tigers being shot, poisoned, captured orotherwise removed from the gene pool.

Improve law enforcement through increased surveillance, apprehension and prosecution.That would result in fewer poachers going after trees, elephants, and tigers.

I

Several conservation interventions are in place at this time to achieve these objectives; othersstill need to be implemented or designed. Interventions reach or will reach from targeted

advocacy to media campaigns, from regulatory changes to improved land-use planning, from

revival of law enforcement to introduction of environmental education curricula, fromestablishment of "best practices" in agriculture and forestry to alternative income generation. Allinterventions are, or will be custom-tailored to the respective target group, from individual

kingpins in the illegal logging trade to global corporations, from governments to villages, from

powerbrokers to the general public.


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stewardship in the plantations from which they source the fibre for their paper. WWF is prepared

to work with the industry to develop the relevant management practices.

Financial Institutions and Banks who invest in the pulp and paper industry in this region

should ensure that their investments are not being used to support the conversion of forests of high

conservation value or the violation of traditional land rights. WWF is prepared to assist financialinstitutions and banks to develop their forest investment policies and criteria and to advise on futureinvestments in the sector.

Customers of products from this region should ask for environmentally sustainable

manufacturing processes so their purchases do not lead to the destruction of more natural forestand the deaths of elephants and other wildlife. WWF is prepared to advise companies in the

development of sustainable procurement policies.

We are the voice of these stakeholders

Conservation Partners

WWF offices in Finland, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the

United States, and at WWF International are working together to secure the Tesso NiloConservation Landscape.

WWF collaborates with government, industry, and non-governmental organizations to conserveRiaus forests, tigers, elephants and other wildlife. Community organizations, the Riau NGO

Alliance Jikalahari, the Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund, DFID, the Rumbai Ecology

Club, the Sall Family Foundation, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are some of WWFsmain partners in this program.

Credits: Remote Sensing, GIS, maps: Martin Hardiono; Indian elephant tusker: Christy Williams, tiger: WWF Nepal Programme; Sumatran elephants in oil palm plantation: Samsuardi; aerial photo of forest: Hank Hammatt, dead elephant: Samsuardi, tiger

scull: WW, all others: Michael Stuewe.

WWF Indonesia ARETAS Riau Programme, Sumatra, Indonesia, 5 June 2003 ([email protected])

Documents

The Tesso Nilo Conservation Landscape%2c Sumatra%2c Indonesia