The day has been late, but this was not the sign to take a rest as routine activity for some areas. Whereas the people of buffer village Way Kambas could not sleep for the coming night, as the mamals in Elephas Maximus Sumatresis National Park were just about to enter the community's farm land area. And it was absolutely true whereas a group of wild elephants has managed to break through the blockade at that night in Tegal Yoso. This incident was so sorry expressd by Mr. Sakipul Mustofa, he is a Labuhan Ratu IX villager (45 years old), Labuhan Ratu district, East Lampung regency. Therefore, Mr. Sakipul is one of the mahouts for Elephant Response Unit Margahayu, where it is about 30 minutes by motor vehicle from Plang Ijo-the gateway to Way Kambas National Park. Of course he got down when hearing some news about the wild herds entering the agriculture area, however this incident becoming a challenge for him in patrolling. As a mahout, this is the Sakiful’s role in overcoming the conflict of elephant–human along the boundary between Way Kambas National Park and buffer village. “Conflict will never end, brother, Elephants are smart,” he expressed while sitting on a lunch break on veranda of ERU Camp Margahayu. “Last time, we have used the loud sounds, they have run immediately, but today it does not work anymore,” he said.

His twenty five (25) year experience becoming mahout has been certainly enough to legitimize his statement against elephants. Starting from taking care of a small elephant at the Elephant Training Center (PLG) and began his career as mahout assistant for circus elephant, Sakipul did not mind to be paid barely enough at that time. His love for one of the endangered giant animals could not be paid by money. His patience in caring, training, and making communication with elephants has been tested. Mahout, the elephant handler which generally said by people not a promising profession and underestimated as the mental forging. But this statement has formed the current Sakipul Mustofa, who sits on the neck of the largest tame elephant in ERU Margahayu named Toni. By sitting on Toni, Mr. Sakipul told the story about his life emotionally and red eyes almost crying, “ I have considered Toni as my own child,” said Mr. Sakipul while wiping his eyes with one hand.

Although Toni is not the first elephant that has been taken care by him but since “walking together” with Toni, Mr. Sakipul has got miracles in his life, one of them which most grateful that he has been appointed as a civil servant. Since getting Decision Letter “SK” as mahout, his love to elephants has grown more. “I earn from elephants, Brother. I support my family’s life, enable to construct a house and have cattle, all of them from taking care of elephants,” he said.

According to Mr. Sakipul’ story that the elephants kept trying to find the loopholes to get out of the National Park area in order to enter the community’s farmland. However, these are not caused by the inefficient patrol team in carrying out the blockade, the unfunction natural river barriers and levees, or the careless villagers working in field which made that wild elephant herds shocked. But the elephants always tried to cross the line based on their instincts to find some food. Even the wild elephants were familiar with the routine patroll schedule. Sakiful took an example about a case was happenning in ERU Camp Margahayu. That was about 2 months ago, the duty mahouts on guard at ERU Camp were surprised by a loud sound and chain. Several elephants screamed and ran including Daeng and Toni, the two adult male elephants whose a fairly large body. After being checked, it was found that a solitary male elephant has infiltrated, his name’s Dugul, the largest elephant that has been seen by Sakiful in his life.

"We, at ERU Camp just feel cheated, Brother. Suddenly, all friends here hear a loud noise," said Sakipul. The next morning all the tame elephants in ERU Camp were checked one by one. It was true, Cuni a female elephant with a fairly large body became a victim of Dugul's ferocity. There were 3 bite wounds on her tail. This was confirmed by drh. Esti, one of the duty veterinarians at the Elephant Training Center. "Elephants also often on duel, Brother. And the losing elpahant will turn his back on the winning elephant, so the back of the body will be the target, especially the tail," said drh. Esti. “First, I get a message on whatsapp that last night Dugul attacked ERU Camp Margahayu that a female elephant has been the victim. Then, I ask for a photo of its wound, and Cuni's tail photo sent to me. I find the wound is quite severe, and come here immediately. Then, we take Cuni to the elephant hospital at PLG, seeing the serious condition of its wound, I decide to amputate Cuni's tail. But after amputating once, it is found that the wound on the other tail is getting worse, so I amputate again. After a while, the other wound get worse, so I do a third amputation. As seeing the condition of the wound on Cuni's tail is quite severe, I don't want to take a risk anymore that the wound will rot, it’s better to be amputated," she explained.

This kind of incident has happened for several times. This was only at one point in the ERU Camp, while the Way Kambas National Park (TNWK) covers an area approximately 1,300 square km. "For the life of this elephant, he is more active at night. They look for food, drink, then at noon they usually look for a shady place,” said Tri Sulistiono (46 years old), a senior mahout who has been already a civil servant. "On the borderland there are groups of conflict elephants, the total of them approximately 45 elephants, on home rangethey never go too far, at most 2km from the edge of the area. At night this group often goes out into the community's farmland or rice fields,” he said about a group of wild elephants that became the main focus of the patrol team.

“This group of elephants whose home rangeis from north to south, north to south, even they always stay on borderland. For example, if they are in the southern part like here, sometimes it will take 15 days or 20 days for them to stay as they feel at home where they can go out to the ricefield and corn plants. Anyway they cannot get out of the area if the blockade is strong. Of course staying there for a long time will make them get bored. Then they move out to north, when they find here no way out till gettting bored, they will be back here and so on, back and forth, back and forth. Well, talking about the history of the national park, it used to be a Ganesha operation. The elephants from outside of Way Kambas has been herded in to the area so that they might feel the place is not their habitat. And their long term memory always remind that this area is their home range , the elephant's home range . So they keep going in and out,” explained Sulistiono.

Talking about elephant’s memory, Putra (25 years) one of the mahout assistants at ERU Camp Braja Harjosari told about Josh, a teenage male elephant that has been taken care for. "His name is Josh and it’s quite difficult to call Josh as many Javanese here, finally we call him Jo for short," explained Putra when introducing the approximately 15 year old elephant. "Jo is traumatized by Christopher," he continued. Based on Putra's story, Jo was once given medicine into his food by drh. Christopher Streme. A few moments after chewing, Jo vomited his food again because he accidentally tasted something bitter in the food that was fed by Christopher.So, Jo felt traumatized every time he saw Christopher, even reluctant to be lead to weighing tent and routine checks.

Putra is the son of one of the mahouts at PLG. He was 8 years old when knowing elephant for the first time. He often acccompanied his father to PLG and joined helping to clean the elephants ’stage, since then Putra became interested in elephants and started his career as a mahout assistant. His experience of "holding" elephants for approximately 17 years is enough to convince us of his statement about elephants. He knows a lot about the elephant’s characteristic, even he doesn't care about his honorarium. "The important thing is that I am close to the elephants," he said.

Therefore, Tropical Forest Conservation Action for Sumatra (TFCA-S) (TFCA-S) has supported the hard work of mahouts at the Elephant Response Unit through its partner namely Community for Sumatran Forests (KHS). So together with other donors, TFCA-Sumatra has distributed some grants to ensure the elephants survival in the Way Kambas National Park area, as we are all aware that conservation work cannot be done by one party, it requires colaboration. And mahout is the spearhead of efforts to protect Sumatran elephants, their habitats, as well as the protection to communities agreement onto their agricultural land. However, the mahouts dedication to efforts for Sumatran Elephant’s Conservation cannot be counted through data on paper or graphics in a power point slide show.

They were fighting against the cold night at the guard post, even the swamp mosquito combatants could not stop them from securing the border area between the national park and community agriculture land. Leaving their family for many days as mahout’s duty has became their routine activity, so do not ask whether the honor that they receive is sufficient or no. As their hearts have been tied with the stake stuck in the border of national park area whereas their vision is to live side by side in peace. Even when the world is hit by a pandemic storm, these mahouts still keeps the health risk by going into the field regularly. Securing borders and herding wild elephants clearly cannot be done through the Zoom Meeting application.Because wild elephants do not know the health protocols, and conflict always come, these mahouts should stand by all the time by ignoring the media words about the importance to apply the 3M.

While the west wind blows carrying the sweet smell of corn leaves, while the west wind blows spreads the soft aroma of rice flowers, during that time the herd of wild elephants will follow their instincts to break through the blockade to the community’s farmland. Though no buffer zone, Way Kambas National Park shoud be border directly with the community’s ricefield. These two areas are only lined by a river with embankments along the sides, this is more easily penetrated by these giant mammals with the flat contours of Way Kambas which is a lowland tropical rain forest. The term "scramble for living space" clearly shows our arrogance as humans, and trying to reach the human-elephant conflict to the end point is certainly hard as the dilemma never ends.