A hundred years ago wild elephants on the Malay Peninsular numbered in the thousands; now there are fewer than 1,500. Over the last century around 50% of forest cover in Peninsular Malaysia has been lost.

Using GPS and satellite communication technology, experts from The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) and the Malaysian Department of Wildlife and National Parks are tracking elephants to assess the effectiveness of the Malaysian Government’s elephant conservation and management practices.

The Malaysian Ministry of Natural Resources through its Department of Wildlife and National Parks has signed memorandums of understanding on research collaboration with the UNMC and 10 public Malaysian universities. The Department and UNMC are also signing a Memorandum of Agreement specifically for the Management & Ecology of Malaysian Elephants research project (MEME). MEME is a five-year research project led by Dr Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, an ecologist and conservation expert, in the School of Geography. The project has received funding of RM3.36m (£700,000) from a foundation set up by the Malaysian-based multinational Sime Darby to help MEME develop a long-term strategy to protect the country’s elephant population. Other important donors are Singapore Zoo, Copenhagen Zoo, the National Zoo (US), US Fish & Wildlife Service and philanthropists.

Dr Campos-Arceiz said: “If we lose the elephants we lose a unique element of tropical ecosystems. When elephants walk they trample the soil and impact the forest in a way that no other animal does. When elephants eat, they modify the structure of vegetation, releasing plant parts that can be consumed by other herbivores. When elephants eat fruits, they disperse seeds. Ultimately, elephants create habitat heterogeneity and promote forest regeneration. All this will be lost and we will have a much more simplified ecosystem that is less resilient and has lost a lot of its diversity.”

Hunted for their tusks and with their natural habitat stripped to make way for crops, roads and settlements, the Asian elephant is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List. MEME will produce information on how elephants move in natural habitats as well as in human-dominated landscapes and how they respond to translocation, one of the practices used to move elephants away from areas of human-elephant conflict (HEC). The project is also looking at non-invasive techniques to extract DNA and hormones from elephant faeces, developing cost-effective strategies to mitigate human-elephant conflict and improving our understanding of elephant ecological function in tropical rainforests. MEME and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks aim to develop a conservation strategy based on scientifically sound knowledge of elephant behaviour, ecology and an understanding of the underlying causes of human-elephant conflict. They will fit 50 elephants (three per cent of the Malaysian population) with GPS-satellite tracking devices to monitor how they respond to habitat changes and translocation, and what effect conservation measures are having on the elephant population on the Malay Peninsula.

GPS collars allow an elephant’s location to be tracked using VHF radio signal or at any location with internet connection to access the GPS locations transmitted by the collar via satellite phone.

Research led by Dr Campos-Arceiz has shown that the elimination of seed-dispersing animals puts the structural integrity and biodiversity of the tropical forest of South-East Asia at risk. His team has confirmed that other herbivores cannot replace elephants in this essential job. Their research Asian Tapirs Are NO Elephants When it Comes To Seed Dispersal has just been published in Biotropica.

Dr Campos-Arceiz said: “Elephants and rhinoceroses play a unique ecological role that cannot be replaced by other species. These mega herbivores act as the ‘gardeners’ of humid tropical forests. They are vital to forest regeneration and maintain its structure and biodiversity. If the elephants and rhinoceroses are lost the ecological trajectories of the ecosystem will change irreversibly.”

Dr Campos-Arceiz and his team work in collaboration with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks of Peninsular Malaysia. They have a field centre in the Malaysian jungle, a field project manager and a team of research assistants and field assistants who are monitoring nine elephants fitted with tracking collars.

The funding will help to support three PhDs for Malaysian students to study elephant stress levels, the development of genetic molecular tools to study elephant populations in tropical rainforests and the characterisation and mitigation of HECs. Dr Campos-Arceiz said: “These scholarships will help to establish a bigger pool of local experts in wildlife management. We also employ staff from the Orang Asli community, Malaysian indigenous people, to tap into their expertise and knowledge of the elephants and their habitat in the rainforests of Peninsular Malaysia.”

For more information go to: www.camposarceiz.com.