ISKANDAR PUTERI: A total of 66,825 human-wildlife conflict complaints with an estimated loss of RM46.5 million have been recorded from 2020 to last year.
Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability (NRES) Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said the significant increase involved animal species such as macaques, elephants, wild boars, Malayan tigers and tapirs.
He said in Johor alone, 7,996 complaints were recorded with a total loss of RM6.88 million.
“We need an integrated action, involving all parties to resolve this issue and a more thorough and effective approach to deal with the human-wildlife conflict.
“This issue is an urgent matter as we have seen several issues that have gone viral lately,” he said at a press conference after officiating the launch of the Johor State Human-Elephant Conflict Special Committee and a dialogue session with the Minister of NRES, here today.
Also present was the state Health and Environment Committee chairman, Ling Tian Soon.
Nik Nazmi said the ministry had implemented various efforts to address human-wildlife conflict, especially elephants.
According to him, this included preserving the Central Forest Spine and increasing protected areas under the Ecological Fiscal Transfer (EFT) for Biodiversity Conservation.
“When the government introduced EFT, we saw an increase in protected areas in the sea and on land, (to date) with a total area of 300,000 hectares.
“Of that total, 90,000 hectares involve land, of which 14,000 hectares have been gazetted as Permanent Forest Reserves,” he said.
Earlier, Nik Nazmi welcomed the efforts of the Johor state government, which took proactive steps to establish a committee to coordinate actions to manage elephant-human conflict in the state in an integrated and systematic manner.
He said the strategic move should be used as an example for other states to increase the effectiveness of efforts to address human-wildlife conflict.
