Indonesian farmer Toha insists he isn't scared of the wild elephants that raid his village.
But he does admit to many sleepless nights when the giant creatures are roaming around in desperate search of food.
"We throw rocks and stones at them, but sometimes it doesn't scare them," he says from his modest wooden home in a small village on the border of Sumatra's Tesso Nilo National Park.
"If we don't throw anything, they will not go away. Everything will be eaten if we do nothing."
Crop raids by elephant have become a common event for Toha, and for many other impoverished villagers living in settlements around Sumatra's last pockets of wilderness.
Elephants and humans are clashing more than ever before, as forests in Sumatra's Riau Province are stripped bare. And humans appear to be winning the fight.
Elephants are disappearing at alarming pace - some trapped or poisoned by locals - and soon they will die out all together in the former elephant stronghold of Riau, the conservation organisation WWF warns.
Just 210 of the endangered elephants are left in Riau - an 84 per cent decline in the past 25 years. As many as 200 have disappeared in recent years.
Six carcasses were discovered in Riau's Mahato area in 2006. All had been poisoned.
That same year, WWF found 10 elephants chained to trees without food or water for more than a week.
"As a conservationist I can't understand how anyone can chain an elephant up to a tree and leave it there," WWF International spokeswoman Jan Vertefeuille says.
"I can't even speculate how someone could treat an endangered species like that. It's very disturbing.
"In Riau, the trendlines show that the Sumatran elephant will be extinct within a few years - this used to be one of the strongholds. They are on a fast downward trajectory that we are trying to stop."
One possible solution developed by WWF is an Elephant Flying Squad, which patrols settlements on the edge of Riau's Tesso Nilo National Park.
Four domesticated elephants and eight handlers use a variety of techniques - from loud cannon noises and spotlights to physical confrontation - to drive wild elephants away from villages.
"One of the roots of the problem is there is not enough space for both humans and the animals," the squad's coordinator Syamsuardi says.
"We need to build confidence with people that they can share the space, that actually humans and elephants can exist together.
"I feel personally that one thing I can do is to help convince people in the communities they can mitigate the conflict without hurting the animal."
Since the program was introduced four years ago, crop losses from elephants are down almost 95 per cent, WWF's Vertefeuille says, adding that locals were learning they could protect their farms without resorting to lethal means.
In another sign of success for the elephants, the two female adults in the squad have had calves to wild elephants.
The program is now to be replicated, with a major pulp and paper company sponsoring another elephant team. And plans are afoot to establish other squads around the Tesso Nilo National Park boundary.
Even so, Vertefeuille describes the flying squads as a "bandaid emergency approach".
"The long-term plan is to make sure that we have enough habitat for the elephants, enough forest, that we don't need a flying squad. But in Sumatra that is unlikely."
WWF estimates Riau has lost 65 per cent of its forests, or around four million hectares, in the past 25 years - one of the fastest deforestation rates on the planet.
Supermarket chain Woolworths has recently come under pressure in Australia for sourcing its Select Brand paper products from Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), one of the two biggest paper companies operating in the region.
Deforestation, and the burning of Riau's carbon-rich peat swaps, has also helped elevate Indonesia to the world's third worst greenhouse gas emitter.
Riau's shrinking forests and burning peat swamps emitted 0.22 gigatons of CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2007 - equal to 58 per cent of Australia's total emissions, WWF says.
Vertefeuille says a huge crackdown on illegal logging in Riau has temporarily halted much of the deforestation - pushing it to the next province of Jambi.
She is hopeful the government will expand the size of the protected Tesso Nilo National Park forests from 38,000 to 100,000 hectares to ensure there is a viable elephant population left into the future.
"But Tesso Nilo can only hold so many elephants ... the government also needs to protect other forests, such as Bukit Tigapuluh," Vertefeuille says.
"We are calling on the government to stop the clearing of forests and to protect the remaining elephant habitat. There is so little left we can't afford to lose more in Riau province."
A large problem is the encroachment of illegal settlements on the Tesso Nilo forest block, who gain access to the area via logging roads.
"It's a huge problem," Vertefeuille says, adding that many of the forest fires that have destroyed peat swamps were started by settlers clearing land for agriculture.
WWF estimates 23,500 hectares of the proposed 100,000 hectare park expansion area has already been encroached upon by settlers.
Vegetable farmer Djamin moved to Kampung Baru, a small cluster of houses on the park's edge, four years ago, before the park was established.
He says he is terrified of the elephants that sometimes roam the area.
A family living nearby fled in fear after a lone elephant crashed through their wooden house four months ago.
"I'm automatically scared, I'm very afraid of elephants here," Djamin says.
"I know elephants are protected by the government, but they have been a problem all year long. Maybe they come here because their food is decreasing, because their habitat is becoming smaller.
"None of my property has been damaged by the elephants fortunately, I hope that will not happen in the future."
He says he and other community members yell at the elephants if they approach, and receive help from the flying squad.
"Sometimes it's very difficult (to scare them away)," he says. "It takes a long time, till dawn. We are very determined to stay awake until they are gone."
Toha, from the nearby Lubuk Kebang Bunga village, says the elephants try to raid his crops about three times a month.
He was born in the village and says the attacks are becoming more frequent, and more aggressive.
"In the past there were also elephants, but in the past if you just scared them they would go back into the forest," Toha explains.
"More and more elephants are coming more frequently, just recently 16 elephants were around this area.
"But I'm not afraid, it is normal, we are already used to it. Small guys like me can run very quickly."
He says that like many other villagers, his family has no option but to stay and fight.
"I feel sad when the elephants eat my plantation, I'm also angry.
"If they eat my crops, it is like we are being pushed out, we have to chase them away so we can survive. We don't have any option. We don't know how to earn a living in the city.
"Hopefully it will go on like this, that we will be able to chase them away and take in our harvest. It's them or us."
