Speaker 1: You're listening to a CNA podcast.
Speaker 2: Hi guys, Teresa Tang here. Pop quiz time. What is
Speaker 2: the world's largest living reptile? Here's a clue. This is
Speaker 2: what it sounds like.
Speaker 2: Well, if you guessed saltwater crocodiles, you're spot on. They're
Speaker 2: also apex predators, meaning they sit on top of the
Speaker 2: food chain. They're agile, fast, and strong, not to mention massive.
Speaker 2: On average, they're 4.5 m long, and Indonesia is home
Speaker 2: to the most saltwater crocodile attacks in the world.
Speaker 2: Why? Well, it's all linked to the country's illegal tin
Speaker 2: mining industry. CNA's Kiki Siregar got up close and personal
Speaker 2: with the animals, and she joins me this week to
Speaker 2: talk about why these deadly clashes are on the rise. Hi, Kiki,
Speaker 2: great to have you on. Hi Teresa. I have so
Speaker 2: many questions about this topic. Maybe you can start off
Speaker 2: by telling us about these ancient predators and how prevalent
Speaker 2: they are in communities like Banca where you visited. Had
Speaker 2: you seen these types of crocodiles before reporting on this story?
Speaker 2: I must say I haven't seen them in Jakarta where
Speaker 2: I am based. I've seen them before in the zoos.
Speaker 2: So when I went to Bangka, it was my first
Speaker 2: time being in Ubana. Banka is in Sumatra Island.
Speaker 2: I was quite surprised to find that actually a lot
Speaker 2: of people are familiar with saltwater crocodiles. Even if they
Speaker 2: hadn't encountered saltwater crocodiles in their lives, they would have
Speaker 2: known someone who had, so it's quite common, I must say.
Speaker 2: Now your story, it's up on YouTube, it has almost
Speaker 2: 200,000 views and I was reading through the comments that
Speaker 2: people left and a lot of them are saying,
Speaker 2: Look, it's us humans who are to blame for the attacks,
Speaker 2: not these animals. And that is correct because the good
Speaker 2: thing is humans are actually not on the menu of
Speaker 2: salt spots or crocodiles. So that's a good thing, but
Speaker 2: having said that,
Speaker 2: They're very sensitive, and if the habitat gets destroyed, they
Speaker 2: would need to migrate. Saltwater crocodiles are sensitive to noise
Speaker 2: and illegal tin mining is very rampant in Banger. You
Speaker 2: can find illegal tin mining behind schools, people's homes. This
Speaker 2: was not the case 20 years ago, so illegal mining
Speaker 2: has become rampant in recent years, so to say.
Speaker 2: And this is why we have seen an increase in attacks.
Speaker 2: You spoke to a man named Lammuddin, and he says
Speaker 2: he turned away from farming. He decided to pursue illegal
Speaker 2: tin mining because he simply couldn't make a living in
Speaker 2: the legal way, and I know in your story you
Speaker 2: say he was attacked by a saltwater croc, but he
Speaker 2: counts himself lucky. Can you tell me more about him?
Speaker 2: And it really seems like his story is indicative of
Speaker 2: So many others. Yes, well, he is indeed lucky because
Speaker 2: he survived. Many people don't, right? Lahmuddin used to be
Speaker 2: a salt pepper farmer about 15 years ago, and he
Speaker 2: didn't earn much as a salt pepper farmer, and that's
Speaker 2: how he then decided to become an illegal tin miner.
Speaker 2: So one day back in 2013,
Speaker 2: He was done for the day. I wanted to go home,
Speaker 2: and this is what Lahmmuddin had to say. One day
Speaker 2: when I finished minington illegally, I went home by boat
Speaker 2: and I was attacked there. This is the scar. I
Speaker 2: fought back and instead it jumped onto my left thigh.
Speaker 2: It hurt so much. Blood was flowing out of my thighs.
Speaker 2: And so he was just struggling with the situation.
Speaker 2: And he was left paralyzed for a month, but after
Speaker 2: a month, he slowly recovered and because he had no
Speaker 2: other job, he decided to go back mining, but in
Speaker 2: order to be safer, he decided to move to another
Speaker 2: place where he thinks he would not encounter crocs. So
Speaker 2: it sounds like people like him are willing to take
Speaker 2: the risk, right, just to earn a living. When I
Speaker 2: was researching for this episode, I watched your story, I
Speaker 2: also pulled up videos of these massive reptiles and
Speaker 2: Just seeing them on the screen, Kiki, I totally got
Speaker 2: the sense of how dangerous they are and I read
Speaker 2: about a 5 year old girl who was just attacked
Speaker 2: in January. I cannot imagine coming face to face with one.
Speaker 2: They're actually very scary, I must say. Like I did
Speaker 2: a few PTCs and I said, let's not use these
Speaker 2: ones because I looked very scared.
Speaker 2: Well, they're huge. Did I mention they can actually weigh
Speaker 2: up to 1000 kg? Yeah, so 1000 kg 7 m long,
Speaker 2: and they're not just in Bangka, they're actually also in
Speaker 2: other parts of Indonesia, in particular in eastern Indonesia. Bangka
Speaker 2: has seen the highest number of human crocodile attacks in
Speaker 2: recent years, but we also have provinces such as East
Speaker 2: Nusa Tangara and East Kalimantan facing the same situation.
Speaker 2: And it's primarily because the habitat has been destroyed, not
Speaker 2: just because of tin mining, it could also be because
Speaker 2: of uh palm oil expansion. Before I went to Banger,
Speaker 2: the big question was how could I actually see a crocodile, right?
Speaker 2: So I did some Googling and then I encountered this
Speaker 2: YouTube channel where a person claims to be a crocodile caller.
Speaker 2: So he calls crocodiles, at least he claims to be
Speaker 2: able to call crocodiles by whistling, like,
Speaker 2: Obviously louder
Speaker 2: And based on the footage of videos I saw on
Speaker 2: his YouTube channel, a crocodile would then come swimming, and
Speaker 2: then he would do some stunts. This is his job.
Speaker 2: He is a YouTuber and he does it because he
Speaker 2: was shopless at that time. So when I went to Bunker,
Speaker 2: I met up with him and we went to an
Speaker 2: estuary where he did exactly that what I just said.
Speaker 2: He whistled, and then slowly I could see a crock
Speaker 2: approaching me.
Speaker 2: I got scared, I must say, and once the crocodile
Speaker 2: became quite close to us, the crocodile collar threw a
Speaker 2: dead chicken into the estuary, so the crocodile jumped.
Speaker 2: and we had good footage because of that, and that's
Speaker 2: where I did my PTC, but I really, I really
Speaker 2: looked scared, so it was not good.
Speaker 2: So this is actually not in my report and there's
Speaker 2: a reason why I did not include this in my report,
Speaker 2: and that is because I must say I don't know
Speaker 2: how legit he is because after this, we went to
Speaker 2: a 2nd place where he did exactly the same thing.
Speaker 2: And nothing happened. I couldn't see a crocodile, and then
Speaker 2: we went to a 3rd and 4th place, the same thing,
Speaker 2: unlucky for us. It could well be that in the
Speaker 2: next attempts, nothing happened because simply there were no crocodiles there.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but it could also be that he
Speaker 2: really doesn't possess any special skills.
Speaker 2: But it was interesting because that was really the first
Speaker 2: time in my life I saw a crocodile in an
Speaker 2: estuary quite close to me. Do you have any figures
Speaker 2: like how many attacks there have been over the past
Speaker 2: few years or most recently? In Indonesia, it's about 1000
Speaker 2: attacks in the last decade.
Speaker 2: Which has led to about 500 deaths. That's a lot, right? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's the world, right? Is that what people are calling it? Exactly.
Speaker 2: So Indonesia has the most crocodile attacks in the world
Speaker 2: and in Banger since 2016, I think there were about
Speaker 2: 60 deaths and just last year alone.
Speaker 2: 2024, 10 deaths, around 10 deaths. So going back to
Speaker 2: your point of how scared you were when you tried
Speaker 2: to film your piece to camera, when you're that close
Speaker 2: to the animal, how do their handlers keep you safe?
Speaker 2: I mean, are they restrained in any way? Did you
Speaker 2: feel like you made eye contact with them? Can you
Speaker 2: kind of describe what it's like being near such a
Speaker 2: large reptile? First off, I made sure I was quite
Speaker 2: far away from the crock.
Speaker 2: Until we had to do the PTC, right? So that's
Speaker 2: the point when I came, how far away was I?
Speaker 2: Probab like 5 m away, maybe less from the crocodile.
Speaker 2: And at that point, environmentalists were actually holding the crocodile,
Speaker 2: so in that sense, the croc was tight, so I
Speaker 2: was safe. The environmentals are all professionals and they have
Speaker 2: a lot of experience dealing with crocodiles, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, luckily nothing happened. Yeah, but sadly attacks are not
Speaker 2: uncommon and when one happens, there's actually a sequence of
Speaker 2: events that takes place, right? I was reading how sometimes
Speaker 2: local residents try and catch the animal themselves. That's just wild.
Speaker 2: Is that allowed, Kiki? How successful are people on their
Speaker 2: own if they try to do this?
Speaker 2: And it's actually not allowed because crocodiles are protected by
Speaker 2: law and should people know of a situation where there's
Speaker 2: a crocodile nearby or they've encountered one, they should call
Speaker 2: the authorities or they could also call environmentalists in Banger,
Speaker 2: there's an organization called LOB Foundation who help people dealing
Speaker 2: with such conditions.
Speaker 2: I must say there is revenge killing in some situations
Speaker 2: where people feel, OK, I see a crocodile, I want
Speaker 2: to kill this crocodile, and they take things into their
Speaker 2: own hands, which is really sad, but Andy Yusouf, an
Speaker 2: environmentalist from Alobi Foundation told me.
Speaker 2: People should stay away from it and let them deal
Speaker 2: with the animals. We should protect the wild habitats of
Speaker 2: animals in nature. This applies to all animals in Bunker Beliung,
Speaker 2: not just the crocodiles, because illegal mining, which destroys the
Speaker 2: habitat is extraordinarily widespread in Bua Belitton. The entire habitat
Speaker 2: has been damaged by illegal mining, which then forces wild
Speaker 2: animals out of their homes.
Speaker 2: Now, according to Statista, Indonesia is one of the world's
Speaker 2: largest tin producers, coming only 3rd after China and Myanmar.
Speaker 2: Can we talk about that industry, you know, how important
Speaker 2: is it to the Indonesian economy and how much political
Speaker 2: will is there really to deal with this illegal mining?
Speaker 2: It is very important to the economy. So when I
Speaker 2: was there last year in 2024, it so happens that
Speaker 2: there was a corruption case going on surrounding illegal tin mining.
Speaker 2: And because of that, a lot of people were afraid
Speaker 2: to mind. So when I was there, people were telling me, look,
Speaker 2: I haven't been working for days, because I don't know
Speaker 2: what to do.
Speaker 2: I'm not mining at the moment because I'm afraid that
Speaker 2: the cops would come and catch me because they know
Speaker 2: it's illegal. So it's very complicated. Basically, the government wants
Speaker 2: to solve it. They want, they want to solve illegal
Speaker 2: tin mining, but the problem is what should people do then, right?
Speaker 2: Legal mining is done by a state-owned enterprise called PTIA.
Speaker 2: They produce tin and usually the tin gets exported to
Speaker 2: countries and then produced as mostly electronics.
Speaker 2: Major brands such as Samsung, Apple reportedly have been using
Speaker 2: Tin from Banker, but it's, it's really complicated because again, it's,
Speaker 2: it's a high unemployment rate.
Speaker 2: And because Bangka is a major producer of tin, people
Speaker 2: just think, OK, this is the easiest way out. So
Speaker 2: there's the political aspects, there's also the ecological aspect, I suppose,
Speaker 2: you know, with these crocodiles, because even if they're caught
Speaker 2: after they injure or maim someone, the story doesn't end
Speaker 2: there because there are challenges on that end too, right? Namely,
Speaker 2: when it comes to resources and where these animals should go.
Speaker 2: Exactly. So if Aloy Foundation, that's the environmentalist group get
Speaker 2: a call that a crocodile is nearby or they need
Speaker 2: to rescue someone, they would definitely come as soon as
Speaker 2: they can. But Aloy Foundation has limited staff, they have
Speaker 2: limited funding as well and also limited resources. They can
Speaker 2: take up about 20 crocodiles, but they told me there
Speaker 2: were cases when there were more than 20 crocodiles.
Speaker 2: And then they said, OK, what now? What they did
Speaker 2: was they decided to let go of some and put
Speaker 2: it back into nature. So it becomes a vicious cycle,
Speaker 2: I would say when I knew about this, my question was,
Speaker 2: can you not migrate the crock somewhere else, right? Exactly,
Speaker 2: especially because Indonesian is a cappelago. It has so many islands,
Speaker 2: isn't there like an empty island anywhere else?
Speaker 2: But they say it's not that easy. First of all,
Speaker 2: saltwater crocodiles can only live in certain situations. They don't
Speaker 2: live in sea. They live in shallow rivers, estuaries, and
Speaker 2: also if they need to migrate, it would take a
Speaker 2: lot of resources, human resources, financial resources as well. So
Speaker 2: that's the situation at the moment sadly. It's a really interesting,
Speaker 2: very complex story. Thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 2: and sharing those details with me. Thank you, Theresa.
Speaker 2: Head to YouTube and CNA.Asia as well to see Kiki's reports.
Speaker 2: And also there are TV episodes of CNA Correspondent every
Speaker 2: Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. Singapore, Hong Kong time. I'm Teresa Tang.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for joining me this week. The
Speaker 2: team behind this episode is Sai Yaguin, Clara Ong, Tiffany Ag,
Speaker 2: Juani Johari, and Craig Dale. Bye for now.