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bservers are urgently calling for a review of plantation activities that intrude on elephant habitats in Aceh after dozens of elephants again entered and occupied a residential area in the province, forcing villagers to flee.

'€œThis is the fifth time this year that conflict has arisen between elephants and humans in this area. Since last year, it'€™s happening more and more frequently,'€ district head Muktar said on Friday after residents of Sejahtera hamlet, Bener Meriah regency, had to leave their homes after displaced elephants invaded.

According to Muktar, no such conflict had been known of before 2012.

'€œMost of the elephants come from Bireun regency, slowly making their way up to Bener Meriah and Central Aceh regencies,'€ he said.

In his opinion, he added, the elephants were migrating following the destruction of their habitats.

Genman Suhefti Hasibuan of the Aceh Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA Aceh) admitted that his agency was struggling to control wild elephants in the province, since their habitats had been converted into plantations owned by local people as well as corporations.

'€œLand conversion and forest management should consider the existence of elephants. When such things aren'€™t well coordinated, it leads to human-animal conflict,'€ Genman said.

The latest incident in Sejahtera hamlet, he went on, could be resolved by deploying tame elephants, included in a team called the Conservation Response Unit (CRU) under the agency, to disperse the wild beasts back into the forest.

'€œHowever, it will be merely a short-term answer to an emergency situation. For long-term results, we need to overhaul forest management,'€ he stressed.

Separately, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia urged the Aceh administration to review the expansion of palm oil plantations in areas inhabited by elephants.

'€œThe expansion of palm oil plantations has been shown to trigger conflict between humans and elephants, as elephants'€™ migratory range is not taken into account,'€ said WWF Indonesia Aceh project leader Dede Suhendra.

According to Dede, on top of plantation expansion, the development of roads crossing forests and transmigration areas also exacerbates the situation, as the roads constrict elephants'€™ migratory range.

'€œThe administration should review all economic activity in elephant habitats to avoid the spread of conflict between residents and the animals,'€ he said.

The population of Sumatran elephants has fallen in the last four years, and the International Union of Conservation on Nature has raised the threat status of the species from '€œemergency'€ to '€œcritical'€™, one step below '€œextinction'€.

Based on WWF Indonesia data, India has around 8,000 individual wild elephants, followed by Malaysia (3,885), Myanmar (2,619), Indonesia (2,000), Thailand (1,000), Laos (700), Cambodia (425), China (285) and Vietnam with only around 97 individual animals.

The conservation organization reported that 28 elephants died in Aceh last year, with some of them the victims of poaching.

Others were reportedly electrocuted by electric fences surrounding plantations in Aceh Jaya, Pidie and Southeast Aceh.

Two weeks ago, two elephants were found dead in Aceh Jaya regency; they were believed to have been poisoned. The two females, 2 and 15 years of age, were estimated to have died two or three days before they were found.

There were no indications of violence or gunshot wounds on the carcasses.