Indonesia Unveils Plans to Protect Elephants, Strengthen National Parks Funding

RRI.CO.ID, Jakarta – Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto is preparing to issue an instruction to conserve the country's rare elephants, including establishing conservation areas. He is also preparing a task force to finance the management of Indonesia’s national parks.

Indonesia’s Minister of Forestry Raja Juli Antoni, after a meeting with Prabowo, said that an instruction is being prepared to save the populations of Sumatran and Bornean elephants, which are currently facing serious threats due to the shrinking of their natural habitats. One measure is to create conservation areas connecting 21 existing population pockets, making it easier for them to move and reproduce.

"A preservation area is a region that allows elephant corridors between population pockets so these elephants can move from one pocket to another," Raja Juli said in a press conference at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta on Thursday, 12 March 2026.

"We will also create corridors within the pockets so their roaming range becomes wider, and their welfare will be better, including preventing inbreeding," he continued.

Raja Juli also said the government will build boundary fences to prevent elephants from entering residential areas, drawing on lessons from previous incidents at Way Kambas National Park in the southern Sumatran province of Lampung. He even confirmed that Prabowo has donated 90,000 hectares of his land in Sumatra to help protect elephant habitats there.

"(That is) why conservation activists say that President Prabowo is a leader who cares deeply about wildlife conservation in Indonesia, especially elephants, because of the very concrete actions he has taken to save our wildlife," he said, without specifying which activists he was referring to.

In addition to elephant conservation policy, Prabowo is also preparing a presidential decree to establish a Task Force for Innovative Financing and Management of National Parks. The task force aims to promote more sustainable funding models for managing Indonesia’s national parks.

"We will look for innovative and sustainable funding, including involving the private sector, so that, once again, our national parks can become world-class national parks," Raja Juli said.

Raja Juli said Prabowo's younger brother, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, will be the head of the task force, while he himself will be his deputy. He also said three of the 57 national parks in Indonesia have been selected as pilot projects for innovative financing, including Way Kambas National Park, home to the critically endangered Sumatran elephants.