C

span class="inline inline-left">Clean creatures: Two elephants bathe in a spring at the Center for Elephant Trainees (PLG) in Saree, Aceh Besar regency.Nurdin, 43, is not your usual school principal.

The school he heads is located in the Center for Elephant Trainees (PLG) in Saree, Aceh Besar regency, and has been training 48 elephants.

These creatures have to be kept away from the wild herds roaming the jungles of Aceh because of their prolonged conflict with men.

Elephants taught in this school were once enemies of the locals, damaging their plantations and even trampling on villagers to death.

“Nearly all those trained in PLG-Saree serve useful purposes like driving off wild elephants that disturb village settlements,” said Nurdin.

“Elephants are meek rather than aggressive. But sometimes they can be ferocious and violent when they feel threatened,” he added.

The elephant school in Saree village, known as PLG-Saree, was set up in 1994 within the Cut Nyak Dien Forest Park, around 70 kilometers from Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh. The park was named after Aceh’s heroine, who fought against the Dutch colonial rule. The 6,300-hectare zone is at the foot of Mt. Seulawah, one of Aceh’s active volcanoes, and is under the protection of the provincial forestry and plantations office.

Elephants trained at his school can execute 25 out of 40 instructions given by trainers, called mahot. They are taught how to walk, sit, drink, eat, raise their legs and carry out other commands. Apart from obeying such orders, some of the elephants who have completed training in PLG-Saree can also play football, sit on chairs and dance. They usually perform at different events to raise funds for the school’s operational costs.

The school has 45 instructors or mahot, a Thai word meaning trainers or handlers.

“Each elephant has its own handler. Each instructor thus controls his own student,” explained Nurdin.

As the principal of an elephant school, Nurdin faces a different set of challenges compared to people in other professions.

Training session: Wild elephants are taught various skills while at the Center.“Too many things in daily life have to be sacrificed, from time to family. If you don’t love animals, then you won’t last long as an animal handler. This job is an expression of love and devotion to nature,” he said.

Nudin never made it to his wife’s side when she gave birth to their children in hospital. His three children were born when he was a long away from home, taking his troupe of elephants to various places outside of Sumatra.

Training elephants to accept commands from men is not an easy task. Sometimes they are quick to learn but they can also be stubborn, especially the recently caught wild elephants.

“Unlike normal schools, all of us instructors and trainees attend classes in this forest,” said Satimin, a mahot at PLG-Saree. The first skill a new trainee is taught is how to lift a front leg, which takes one to two weeks to learn. During this process, the beginner is tied to a large tree. Some trainers will help control the elephant, and force it to obey.

“Sometimes we also use a tame elephant to train the novice. The skilled one will push the wild animal from behind with its head as a goad,” added Satimin. All elephants, according to him, have a hard time at the beginning. When they are already skilled, the mammals tend to be more tame and docile. A handler has a special relationship with his trainee, which will usually last its whole life.

“Every mahot will feel sad if the elephant under his care is in trouble. Some handlers consider elephants as family members, even as their children,” Satimin said with a laugh. Trained elephants will thus never be returned to the wild. They will always stay in the school area with their mahot.

Happy creature: A trainer teaches an elephant a few tricks at the centerThe elephants’ expenses are funded with the regional budget managed by Aceh’s Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA). “We need about Rp 45 million for animals’ monthly expenses, which amounts to Rp 1 million per elephant,” said Satimin.

Today, many of PLG-Saree’s graduates work as rangers patrolling the forest. They are part of the Conservation Response Unit (CRU) program for the removal of wild elephants trespassing into village settlements.

There are two CRU locations in Aceh, in Sampoinet, West Aceh, and Geumpang, Aceh Pidie.

“It’s important to involve elephants in forest patrol groups because conflict between elephants and locals is intensifying, particularly in areas where illegal logging and forest conversion occur on a large scale,” he pointed out.