Elephants Have Lost Over 64% Of Historically Suitable Habitats Across Asia Due To Timber Harvesting, Farming, And Agriculture, According To New Research
Asian elephants, the biggest land animals living in Asia, used to wander across the continent’s grasslands and rainforests, and their habitats were pretty stable until the 1700s.
But things have since changed drastically. A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) analyzed land-use data from 850 to 2015 and revealed a grim picture: over 64% of the elephants’ historically suitable habitats across Asia have actually vanished.
In a press release, UCSD detailed how colonial-era practices in Asia, such as timber harvesting, farming, and agriculture, have drastically reduced the size of typical habitats for wildlife. These practices shrunk the average size of habitat patches by more than 80%, from 99,000 to 16,000 square kilometers.
Additionally, the university highlighted the abandonment of traditional land management methods, adding that suitable habitats for Asian elephants– or Elephas maximus– across the continent have shrunk by over 64%. This represents a loss of approximately 3.3 million square kilometers– or 1,274,137 square miles– of land since the year 1700.
UCSD faculty member Shermin de Silva spearheaded the study alongside his colleagues and investigated how elephant ecosystems across 13 countries have changed in terms of distribution and fragmentation between 850 and 2015. They also assessed the alteration in suitable habitats for these elephants from 1700 to 2015.
The research results indicate habitat loss for elephants in several regions, such as mainland China, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sumatra, and Vietnam, where each has seen over half of their suitable elephant habitats disappear. The most severe reductions occurred in China and India, with approximately 94% and 86% of their suitable habitats lost, respectively.
Now, due to the insufficient habitat available for the surviving elephant populations, there’s a heightened risk of conflicts between humans and elephants, a challenge that is common with wildlife worldwide.
“In the 1600s and 1700s, there is evidence of a dramatic change in land use, not just in Asia, but globally,” de Silva detailed.
“Around the world, we see a really dramatic transformation that has consequences that persist even to this day.”
thdk – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual elephants
So, the authors emphasized the importance of acknowledging the landscape’s historical context to really grasp the distribution of elephants in Asia better.
This understanding is crucial for devising land-use and conservation strategies that are sustainable and cater to the needs of both elephants and humans alike.
“We used present-day locations where we know there are elephants, together with the corresponding environmental features based on the LUH data sets, to infer where similar habitats existed in the past,” de Silva concluded.
“In order for us to build a more just and sustainable society, we have to understand the history of how we got here. This study is one step toward that understanding.”
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in Scientific Reports, visit the link here.
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