The largest hornbill in Asia, it lives in the lowland forests of Sumatra and Kalimantan but is difficult to find nowadays, according to environmentalist group Rangkong Indonesia.

Yoki Hadiprakarsa, the director of the NGO, said the icon of West Kalimantan had seen its numbers decreasing drastically, particularly compared to before 2012.

“An ex-hornbill hunter told me he could catch up to 20 helmeted hornbills within a week before 2012, but the figure dropped to two hornbills per two or three weeks in 2016,” he said on Tuesday, adding that the former hunter then decided to stop hunting the bird for reasons of scarcity.

The helmeted hornbill is a large bird at 120 centimeters long and weighing up to three kilograms. Its most distinctive feature compared to other hornbills is its big red and yellow casque used for head-to-head combat among the males. The casque is also deemed the most precious part of the bird by hunters.

The casque is in high demand in several countries, mainly China and Hong Kong, to be processed into decorative arts such as sword handles, ornaments and others, Yoki said.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) revealed recently that one kg of the casque could sell for US$4,000, which is more expensive than elephant tusk.

In 2013, roughly 6,000 helmeted hornbills were killed in West Kalimantan alone. Nearly 1,400 attempts to smuggle the hornbill’s casques were foiled by authorities between 2011 and 2016.

“If the poaching does not stop, we will soon see the hornbill go extinct,” Yoki emphasized, adding that the government should work hand in hand with local communities to help guard the animal from what appeared to be “systematic hunting”.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, the helmeted hornbill is labeled as critically endangered, one level before extinct in the wild.

Besides rampant hunting, massive deforestation also narrowed the ecosystem for the bird to live, Yoki said, calling on the government and local administrations to preserve primary forests, which is where the bird lives.

The bird, as explained by Yoki, was quite picky in choosing trees in which to breed. The tree has to be one meter in diameter and possess a certain shape of hole. Not all helmeted hornbill couples find the perfect tree in which to nest, making it hard for the monogamous species to multiply.

There has not been any immediate figure provided on the population of the bird, according to data from Rangkong Indonesia. However, the group was certain that the number was small given the difficulty local residents had in finding them in forests.

According to the Birdlife International website, the species has been up-listed from Near Threatened in 2011 to Critically Endangered in 2015, owing to severe hunting pressure and habitat loss.

Indonesia, in cooperation with the US through a project named Build Indonesia to Take Care of Nature for Sustainability (USAID BIJAK), is intensifying efforts to protect the helmeted hornbill by, among other things, formulating a 10-year national action plan for helmeted hornbill conservation from 2018 to 2028.

Based on the document, Indonesia is committed to improving people’s understanding of the importance of protecting the nearly extinct helmeted hornbill.

“We are here to help Indonesia achieve its goal,” USAID BIJAK chief of party Symantha Holben said Monday.

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