Borneo elephants, the diminutive pachyderms of Sabah and Kalimantan, are now ‘Endangered’ on IUCN’s Red List

The elephants of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo and Kalimantan in the Indonesian part of the island, have been classified as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN or International Union of Conservation of Nature’s Red List, according to a statement on June 27, 2024.

A team of IUCN and the Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG) scientists and conservationists used satellite tracking to determine that Borneo elephants number about 1,000 individuals. Of these, about 400 are breeding adults.

More than half of the animals’ forest habitat (60 per cent) has been lost in the last four decades, mainly due to logging and the widespread planting of commercial oil palm.

Linear infrastructure constructed by humans like roads, along with human settlements, have further impeded the elephants’ ability to move between their three core habitat areas.

The pachyderms stray into human settlements and raid crops, leading to conflict with people, and the killing of animals in some cases. They are also sometimes poached for their ivory and hide.

“A fundamental role of the IUCN Red List is to inform extinction risk at the national level, or at the level of a subpopulation of a species whose status might not be the same as the global population or other subpopulations. Geographic variations in extinction risk are central to assessing Green Status, a recently adopted protocol for refining key conservation interventions across a species’ range,” the statement quoted Jon Paul Rodríguez, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC), as saying.

“As countries gear up to meet their commitments under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, detailed local assessments, such as the Borneo population of Asian elephants, contribute valuable case studies to learn from and replicate,” Rodriguez added.

Mysterious proboscideans

For long, the Borneo elephant has been a mystery for scientists and zoologists. Is it similar to its cousins on mainland Asia? Or did it evolve on Borneo, the world’s third-largest island by size?

In April last year, Down To Earth (DTE) interviewed Nurzhafarina Othman, an elephant ecologist and senior lecturer at Universiti Malaysia Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo. Othman has been working on the Borneo elephant for more than 15 years.

Read The Borneo elephant has been overshadowed by its bigger cousins: Nurzhafarina Othman

Othman told DTE about two hypotheses regarding the animals’ origins. One was that they were gifts from the ruler of Java to the Sultan of Sulu. The Sultanate of Sulu was a powerful Sunni Muslim polity in Southeast Asia during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. It lasted till the early 20th century. The Sultanate’s heartland was the Sulu archipelago, today in the southern Philippines, and neighbouring northern Borneo, where Sabah and Kalimantan are located today.

The other theory regarding the elephants’ antecedents is that they are native to Borneo, according to Othman.

She added that genetic tests that she and her team had done, revealed that the elephants had been introduced to Borneo. However, they have been on the island for so long that they have become genetically different from other elephants, she added.

The IUCN-AsESG team, meanwhile, have found the elephants to be genetically distinct from all other elephant populations, having separated from them tens to several hundreds of thousands of years ago.

“The elephants are distinguished by their small size, with males growing to some 2.5 m in height compared to 3 m on the mainland. The team also showed that their skulls differ in shape, giving them a wider face than other Asian elephants,” the statement noted.

Conserving the Borneo elephant

Adrian Lister of London’s Natural History Museum, who took part in the study, said: “Conserving biodiversity means conserving natural variation at all levels — not only different species but also unique populations within species. The distinctiveness of the Borneo elephant in both appearance and genetics warrants its recognition as a separate subspecies, Elephas maximus borneensis. In conservation terms, it is an Evolutionary Significant Unit, whose loss would diminish both local and global biodiversity.”

“I am pleased that key members of the AsESG have catalysed the listing of the Bornean elephant on the IUCN Red List for the very first time. This range-restricted taxon has never been listed before and this assessment of its threat should spur its conservation by Malaysia and Indonesia and direct conservation focus to it in terms of resources and science,” said Vivek Menon, Chair IUCN SSC AsESG.

Cheryl Cheah of WWF-Malaysia, another member of the assessment team, stated, “As a distinct subspecies, these elephants are unique to the island of Borneo and part of our natural heritage. Their classification as Endangered underscores the urgency of collaborative conservation actions such as the management of human-elephant conflict and coexistence, and the prevention of further habitat loss and fragmentation — both of which are crucial for safeguarding their future survival.”

Both the Malaysian and Indonesian governments have action plans for the conservation of Borneo’s elephants, but they face many challenges.

The statement noted that to secure the future of these unique animals, it is essential to protect and expand their forest habitats, support local communities in minimising conflict with elephants, and enforce anti-poaching measures.

“An urgent need is the establishment of wildlife corridors through the vast oil palm plantations, joining the forested patches and allowing the elephants to roam more widely, access more food, and mingle to preserve their genetic diversity,” it added.

The Asian elephant is one of three elephant species alive today — the other two are the African savanna and forest elephants. With an estimated 40,000 animals surviving in the wild, spread across 13 countries of southern Asia, the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) has been classified as ‘Endangered’ by the IUCN since 1986.

The IUCN Red List is a barometer of the world’s biodiversity. It is used by governments, conservation organisations, academics and planners to inform and catalyse action for species conservation. Currently, over 163,000 species of animals, fungi, and plants are included on the Red List, 28 per cent of them threatened with extinction.