LANDOWNERS will now have to answer to the authorities if elephants wind up dead or injured from traps set on their land, Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Christina Liew said today.

She said the Wildlife director, with immediate effect, now had the power to call in landowners under Section 33 of the Wildlife Conservation Enactment 1997. 

Section 33 concerns the use of prohibited hunting methods. 

“With immediate effect, the director now has the authority to call in landowners to explain themselves when such incidents occur. 

“We will hold smallholders, plantation companies, timber companies and operators of the state’s forest reserve units answerable to the death of the elephants,” she said after officiating her ministry’s 50th anniversary in Kota Kinabalu today.

The ministry had recently raised death toll of elephants killed by gunshot wounds, snare traps, poisoning and getting stuck in mud pits for days in plantation grounds or in forest reserves from 10 to 25. 

It is the highest recorded number of elephant deaths to date, according to the department. 

There are an estimated 2,000 Borneo pgymy elephants in the wild but numbers are fast dwindling due to increasing cash crop planting activities. 

Previously, the Wildlife Department had, along with civil society bodies, cleared all snare traps set by plantation workers at a Felcra-owned plantation. 

Borneo pygmy elephants are indigenous to Sabah and are not found anywhere else in the world. 

Despite the alarming number of elephant killings, no individual or company has been charged for the crimes, the department said. 

Previously, Liew said the enactment could be amended to make the killing of fully protected animals a strict liability offence, but recently retracted that statement. 

Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga said such an amendment would be in line with the use of Section 33 of the enactment. 

On whether the department would call in all suspects in the killing of the 25 elephants this year, Tuuga replied in the negative, saying the move only applied to cases going forward. 

On another development, Liew said an elephant unit would be established under the Sabah Wildlife Department to put an end to the killing of the pachyderm. 

“We are waiting for an elephant expert from Oregon Zoo in the United States to help us establish this unit,” she said. – August 30, 2018.