Our third Wild Asia Hero goes to the Lubok Bongor Conservation, Cultural, Social and Welfare Society (PRILUB). Formerly known as the Wildlife Protection Unit (WPU), the group was the first community-based wildlife protection unit to be set up in the country. Jules Ong reports from Lubok Bongor, Kelantan.

Written by Jules Ong on 23 Jun 2010 with 0 comments. Be the first!

An unusual poster greeted me as I walked into the local watering hole in Lubok Bongor, Jeli; a village in the far eastern fringes of the Islamic state of Kelantan.

The café is one of those nondescript wooden shacks offering delicious local fares that you often see hugging the sides of shady tree lined trunk roads in rural Malaysia.

"Gajah Masuk Kampung!"(Elephants Entering Village!), an A4-sized poster hung on the white wall of the café screamed in bold. The poster urged the reader to contact the Wildlife Protection Unit (WPU), followed by a contact number and a group photograph of the members of the protection unit.

This is Lubok Bongor, where the first community-based Wildlife Protection Unit in the country was set up to help resolve human-wildlife conflict - a critical problem in Lubok Bongor.

Since 2006, more than 8,000 acres of the forested area nearby have been cleared for oil palm plantations as part of the state's anti-poverty programme called the Ladang Rakyat or People's Plantation. But there was no planning for the relocation of wildlife. While smaller fauna perished, bigger games like elephants and tigers were left to roam the forest fringes in search of food.

Lubok Bongor, which is barely a couple of kilometres away from the Ladang Rakyat became a target of hungry wild elephants that were displaced from their usual forest haunts.

For months the farming community of 700 families were at the mercy of herds of wild elephants coming and going as they pleased. The elephants would cross the Pergau River into the village, trample on their vegetables, knock over fruit trees, and eat their way through the village. Terrified, some of the villagers hired poachers to kill the elephants.

In 2008, the WPU, set up by the WWF came into operation. The initial 21 members, made up of farmers and local entrepreneurs were trained to handle human-wildlife conflict. They did regular night patrols along rivers and jungle paths armed only with flashlights, air horns, loudhailers, and a homemade bamboo canon. Using these basic tools, the men would create a huge racket to scare the reluctant elephants back across the river.

Since then, they have built electrical fencing around the village and with the reduction in human-elephant conflict, the Lubok Bongor community no longer see the need to kill the elephants.

"We can say that our project was a success. Nowadays we get very few calls to chase away elephants. We heard that the elephants have gone up north," says farmer Hamdan Musa who was head of the WPU.

But with the success, it also meant that the WWF sponsored project would be terminated this year. Empowered by their success, the group has decided to continue and expand its work scope and opened its membership to include the entire community. They now call their newly formed group Persatuan Prihatin Konservasi, Kebudayaan, Sosial dan Kebajikan Lubok Bongor (Lubok Bongor Conservation, Cultural, Social and Welfare Society) or PRILUB for short.

"We want to continue our work of protecting the wildlife and educating the people about the environment. Now we do gotong-royong with the community, we also have a dikir barat group consisting of young people, and we want to come up with an eco-tourism project to generate income for the community," says Zaid Omar, the president of PRILUB.

A part of their work includes educating the community about the protection of wildlife. They formed a dikir barat group, a traditional Kelantanese singing group accompanied by gongs and drums, with lyrics that speak about the need to protect wildlife and the threat of poaching. The group also regularly patrols nearby jungles for tiger snares that were placed by poachers, many of whom are Thais who cross the border illegally.

Zaid says that the group is looking for sponsors to fund its initial projects. They are still starting out and would welcome any support. If you are interested to help, please call Zaid Omar: +6017-9013182

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