Judging from the appearance, she doesn’t look like a person who spends most of her working time caring for elephants in the jungle. But as the old saying goes, never judge a book by its cover; she truly is a woman on the frontlines of elephant conservation.

As a city person born in Semarang, Elisabet Purastuti, familiarly known as Elis, sees nature as something beautifully amazing, because for most of her life, she only saw it from a distance. At university, she joined a group of nature adventurers and began actively enjoying the outdoors.

After university, she began a career with a software company working with geographic information system (GIS). It wasn’t long before she decided to combine her professional and personal interests, going to work for WWF as a GIS officer in 2001 in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in southern Sumatra.

In the beginning, she spent most of her time working in front of the computer at her office, composing preliminary analysis on forest condition. Later on, as the work required her to conduct ground truthing to compare the computer-based analysis with real “on-field” conditions, she couldn’t avoid the assignment to stepping into the deep forest of Sumatra.

“I found it very difficult when I first came down to the forest for ground truthing.  The field was so rough and it gave me hard times, I had to cross the river and climb up and down the mountains. But at the same time I felt so amazed with the beautiful scenery inside the forest. It was so marvellous. And that made me want to go back to the forest over and over again,” said Elis.

Elis admits that being the only woman on the team has its challenges. The main difficulty she has to face is during bath times, but she’s learned tricks to handle it. However, she still gets different treatment compared to other members of the team. For example, when she has to spend the night in a village near the forest, she is usually offered a better place to sleep.

“But I’m not sure whether that special treatment is applied because I’m a woman or because of my position as the team leader,” Elis said.

Being the team leader, the most serious challenges she has to face in the field are when she encounters conflicts and misunderstandings with local people living around the forest. “One time, I had to face angry local people when we are trying to solve a borderline conflict in a village that separates the national park area and non-forest area. They accused me of being tricky and deceiving. It was really life-threatening.”

As the years passed, Elis’s scope of work grew to cover the monitoring of big mammals by conducting surveys to the field. As the leader of a survey team, she had to find ways for the team to gather evidence showing which areas are significant for elephants, tigers and rhinos.

One day, in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, “we saw several snakes come rushing towards us. Then we heard the sound of elephants in the forest. Assuming that the sound came from behind us, we decided to continue walking ahead. But suddenly we heard a very clear and close sound right in front of us. At the very moment, we all decided to run as fast as we can back to the camp and make a fire. They were so close, we were lucky we still had time to run and save our lives.”

After her field work showed that human-elephant conflict is more severe than conflict with other animals, Elis began focusing her work on elephant conservation, which led to her appointment as the Elephant Monitoring Coordinator for WWF-Indonesia in 2007. She was responsible for handling elephant issues at the national level, covering Riau, Lampung and Kalimantan provinces. In the same year, as her passion for conserving elephants grew, she took part in the establishment of the Indonesian Elephant Conservation Forum (Forum Gajah) with Wildlife Conservation Society, Flora Fauna International and Conservation Science Initiatives. Today, Elis is still actively involved in the organisation as the treasurer. 

At present, Elis is working towards her Master’s Degree in Environmental Science Study at the University of Indonesia. Even as a full-time student, she is still providing her assistance with elephant issues.

“I continue my studies because I want to broaden my knowledge and framework on elephant conservation by reading more books and seeing other people’s perspective on elephants and how to save them,” said Elis. She also hopes that her thesis can contribute to elephant conservation.

“I will still work on elephant-related issues when I finish my degree, whether as a lecturer, researcher or elephant expert,” said Elis, closing the story of a dauntless woman on the frontlines of elephant conservation.

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