itit's here in grocery y stores wherere the fate e of indonesesn elephants begins.. you may have never heard of it, but palm oil, a common vegetable oil, has been a growing presence on supermarket shelves since the 1990s. it's high yield, versatility, and price make it an exceptional competitor against alternative vegetable oils. today, palm oil and its derivativeves are presesent in % of all packaged food. products like bread, cookies, chocolate, chips, and even shower soap.

the c consumer r benefits,s, bue sumumatran elephants pay y a pr. their habitat is cleared by legalal and illegal logoggers to make room for palm oil plantations. we sentnt our u.k. field producer jim wickens to the aceh region of north sumatra. here the leuser ecosysystem is one of the last remaining strongholds for indonesian wiwildlife. it's a 6-million-acre protected park, but it's being illegally cut down to make room for palm oil. we've drivenen into the leur ecosystem. ththis is a place of tigers, e elephants, rhinos, and orangutans. it's supposed to be protetected. but we've been tipd off by r rangers here that thehe is illegal deforestation goining on as wewe speak. we're going to go and d try to film tm and d get right up clolose to te deststruction.

keep going. we've been hiking for hours to get here, right on the edge of where the trees are being cucut down. i'm s standing just metersrs from where the chaiains are operating.g. i'm whisperinig because we've beenen told by our guides that ththese people arere highly danangerous. [chainsaws in backckground] and it's s likely to get violent iif we move any closer. [man s shou inin staance] you can hearar the trees falling through the canopy. it's one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. [choppiing] and it's s being destroyed. every day we consume palm oil, labeled as vegetable oil. and a lot of it is coming from

here inin indonesia. the'v converteted the lowlands alread. and now the palalm oil plantatis are movingng up and upup the sl, to here,e, leuser r rainforest. we've gotta go. >> leleuser isn't thehe only ple experiencing deforestation. since 198585, more than 50% of e forests in n sumatra hahave been cleared, not just for palm oil plantations, but also for paper, wowood, mines, , and road infrastructure. what took thousands of years to grow is coming down at an alarming rate. >> look at that.

wewe traveleled for over an ho, deep ininto this papalm oil planantation, titill we'e've go, ththe front line of the expansi. this expansion n here is illegal under inindonesian law, anand 's all happening f for palm oil. this s timber will be shiipped f to market, and in its place, in a matteter of days,s, young m oil seedlings will be planted. >> p palm oil is one of ththe mt widedespread vegetable oilils throughout the world. within indonesia itself and also china and india, the 3 of them account forar more ththan half of the, uh, the world's consumption of palm oil. but the u.s. and european n union are also major players and cacan really, you

know, set the standarard for others to follow. >> we all know about the charismatic megegafauna thahat e in a africa--elephants, lilions, hippppos, things like that. i guess what's less s known to the e international commununity are the charismatic m megafauna in asiaia, and partrticularly sumatatra. so herere we have e , 3.5 million hectares of rainforest, it contains about a third o of the sumatran elepht population, uh, possibly a third of the sumatran tiger population. i it contains nearly 90%0% of the sumatran orangutan pupulati. itit's cctically impoant for the surval o o large mammalsnot just in sumatraut acrcrs asia awellll. elephan prefer lowland forest habitatthat''s their p pme habit. that's also the habat the l ld that's most dedend for aiculultura pntatioio or for loggin concesons as wl. the pansioof palm l plantationcecertaiy hahas en

a key ntributoto elepht fest habitaloss. th's witut a dou. >> the future of this mountain elephant t is bleak. it'ss a rey didifficult situation.n. as lons there''s a demanand for oil palm there's going to be a demand to clear lowland rainforest in sumatra. >> ththe distinct and uninique sumatran elephantt is now connsidered critically endangered, m meaning thahat i'n imminent danger of extininction. >> you know, when you don't hhae governments, , when youou don'te enforcemen a and you gotot the chance toakake piles ofof money, guess whwhat's gonna h happen. riright, and we're seeing that play out. from a pure economic standpoint, you've got to sort of look at all the political actors. thealalm oil is generarating revenue for the gogovernment in t terms of expot taxes on palm m oil, in terms of payroll taxes and d payments ino social security systems and all of thehe governmentt programs. palm oil is more valuable than the forest right now because of the way we value forests. >> while indonesia is looking to

scale up i its production of pam oil, , this will come at a great cost. i it will come at a great costst to the enviroronment ande ecoosystem. >> with their old homes deforested, elephphants and othr wildlife havave to move somewhe. it's here in f farming villages that humamans and elelephants collidede. in aceh,h, communitis rely on agriculture, and when elephants begin eating those crops, conflicts become deadadl. >> [speaking local language]

>> loss of life isn't new to the people of aceh. for over 30 yeyears, violelent clasheses ocd between rebels and the jakarta government, until 2004, when a peace treaty was signed. over 15,000 people died in that conflict. twyears afafter the peace treaty, aceh was hit by a series of deadly floods, killing dozens. experts believe extensive e logging in the surrouing hills s caused the floods. >> [spepeaking local lalanguage]

>> after such adversity, many cocommunities s are just tryryio rebuild. andnd for young farmer, like s sabaruddin,n, elephantstd other wildlife pose a a threat o their livelihood. >> [speaking local languguage]

>> with money on the li, it's ooften hard d to find sosolutios that are goodod for both h peope and elephants. but with no solutions at all, the conflicts can turn ugly. baby elephants are ofteten captured, domesticated, and used f for enttertainmentnt. [speakining local langnguag] [elelephangrgrowls >> this is rajah the elelephant. he's been namemed by the villags who found him in a trarap, on a plantatation aboutut a month ag. apparenently he's justt over a r old. as cute as he is, it's a really tragic story. he's on his own, chained up, padlocked, well away from his family, where he should be e learning the skis to survive i in the wild. and effectivively, he's now dodoomeo a life of... beiing in a ccamp somewhere. and t this is--ththis irealallyy

much thehe hea of f the problem herere in sumatrtra. the communy are telling us that t they're really fefed up with t the elephahants mining in anand taking f food crops s eve, from the wild. anand they feel pretty strongly abouout, you kn, tthe government neededs to helpp them, not t the elephants. and they're refusing to let rajah go, to give him the governrnment vets,s, until t tht compensatition for their crops.. >> that compensation never came, and shortly after these images were taken, rajah died. >> [speaking local language] >> the body of an elephant lies rotting on the forest floor. a casualty of the human/elephant conflict, this elephant was killed using rat poison.

as more palm oil is planted and more habitat cleared, more elephants will find a similar fate. conflict elephants that aren't poisoned are often caaptured and placed in government-run camps. forcibly taken from their herds, these elephants now face a lifetime of captivity. dedespite the best effort of government employees at the camps, t the issue of what to do with these so-called problem elephants remains largely unsolved. . one nonprofit organanization, fauna & flolora internationonal, is tryrying to help.p. their conservionn responsese unit, or cru, made up of 14 elephants, is being deployed to prevenent human/wildlife conflflict. in communities where conflicts

exist, the cru will push elephants back to remaining forest areas away from villages. >> [speaking local l language] >> these approaches can be very effectivive on the small scale,

um, andlslso in the s sho term.. at the end of the daday, as elelephant habitathrininks, elelephants a are going to spend more and more time coming out of the forerest. so thehe long-term solution is not community based initiatives to drive elephants back to the forest. the long-term solution is to make sure there's enough room for the elephantsts to live in the natal habitat withthout having to coce into humanan habitatioion. >> the best hope to conseserve the sumatran elepephant is acactuallyly to consererve the n aceh, because that's where thehe biggest popopulations a are. so inin order to conserve t the elephants, we've got to conserve those lowland rainforests, which means conserving leuser. >> graham m usher is trying to o jusst that. he is a man n on a missssion. he is using new technology to capture an aerial view o of the illegal loggining operations. he hopes it will help prorotect elephant hahabit.

>> we've been flying a uav, unmanned aerial vehicle. that gives us the capacity to fly program missions over a set route with cameraras and other sensorsrs on boarard, so we c cn bbasically g get an aeririal vif what's going on on the grground. >> [indistinct] >> ok, can you hold this? ok, s she's on course. good aireeeed. ground speed's ok. today we saw that a very large area of reregrow f forest in the leuser ecosystem has been cleared and is being replanted with palm oil. this sort of work, collection of evidence, provides us with a much stronger case when you go to decisionmakers andnd say, lo, this is what's going g on. these are your lawsws. why isn'n't acn

bebeing taken? it's very likely that palm oil from these, uh, illelegally logged areasas willd upup on superermarket shelves unless we are very, very careful. >> as consumers, we need to be far more wary of which products contain palm m oil and put pressure on the retailers and the food industry to ensure that those products contatain palm ol that comes from sustainable sources.s. >> we do o have an opopportunit. previous to all of this, it was aally a seseller's mket, although therere was much moree demand than there was supply. and so o this is really the time to really push h hard around e palm issue, because it is gonna be about access to markets. so we've got a a little bitit of levevera, , but we reaeally also have to o take the fight and t e conversation to the chinas, the inindias, andhe i indonesiaias, because they haveve a great, grt role in terms of being able to put market pressure and try to change it.

>> [speaking local lananguage] >> whenever i go to sumatra, whenever i walk into the forest in sumatra, it's like walking into a wall of diversity. it's incredible. if wewe could save sumatran n elephants in the lowland areas of f sumatra, we we would be e saving so much moe than e elephants. that to me iss the crux, is this huge amount ofof biodiverersity that you'ree saving by protecting the--this magngnificent creaeature thahate summatran elepephant.

>> if we don't take urgegent action, a few years down the road we e will be looking at t e leuser ecosystem m and sayingng, my y god, why didn't we do moree whwhen we had the chancnce? >> for baby elephants like this, the future remains uncertain. if deforestation continues, it is u unlikely the sumatranan eleephants will survive. but people can make a difference before it's too lalate and the elephants disappear forever. while e elephants in sumatra a e habitat loss from palm oil, elephants in thailand f face a completely different set of problblems. here, tourism is fuelingng the illegegal trade of baby elephants. >> [speakiking thai] >> elephant rides, festivals,

and camps are a must for thousands of tourists who flock to thailand each h year. but beyond the happy smiles, there is a dark reality behind the origin of these elephants. a brutal trade that experts claim threatens the survival of some of the world's last remaining populations of asian elephants. >> we traveled to the region of chiang mai in northern thailand, home to many of the elephant camps enjoyed by tourists. >> there have been recent sites based d in africa watching eleephants, ang o other thihing, r r a very, very lonong time,, whereas in asia there's very little research hasas been done. very little has been said about the dramatic drop in population.

no one would have any idea that this spececies is also endanger. >> john roroberts runsns an elet camp.p. he was one of thehe firo recognize the link between the supply of elephants for the tourism industry and elephant hunting in the wild. >> we've beenen jumpingng up and down sasaying, if y you buy ann elephant,t, you're probabably tg another elelephant outut of the wild. we realized very early on that buying elephants was causing a problem a and hurting the wildld popatioion or at lelt the bururmese population. >> the hunting of wild elephants is ilillegal in thailand, b but experts claim the practice is widespread in neighboring burma, and it threatens t the last healalthy populalations of asian elephants that reside there. baby elephants are particularly sought after. >> it's very attrtractive to tourists or thai p people, so everybody wants bababy elephant, and they are worth a lot of money. yoyou don't need any documents, no microchip, so it's susuper easy. you go iinto the jungle, you u catch an elephant, you train n them, andd a month later you can n get like 600,000

baht, and if you can imagine how much m money this s is in thaiad and how easy it isis to do.... >> teams of hunters surround herds of elephants, killing the parents and other adults who try to defend their young. investigations have revealed that as many as 5 adults may be slaiain for everery calf capapt. the defenseless calves are then smuggled across the border. these rarely seen imimages show elephants being forced to endure a cruel spirit-breaking ritual known as the fashong. these activities take place in remote camps o on the burmrmese borderr from thehe public eye. >> i in thailandnd, they usese p things to o stab them.m. they ue knives, they use axe, they use a stick to beat them. anything that will make the elephant painful and afraid of people. a lot of them die. we have a

record d how the elelephant die. die from suffocatete, die fromom starvation, dieie from the e st, anand some of theem die from the heartbreak becausesehey couldn't accept it. >> while the lucrative trade in wild elephant smuggling is illegal in thailanand, lek allls that it involves corruption on various levels. >> have the police involved, hahave the miilitary involved. you know, if you want to make birth certificate or i.d. card, you can fake it. big money for the offificial to issue e the p. >> once you are confrontining these i influential peoplple tht arare above the law, itit can gt quite dangerous. there were some camp owners that like told me literally y that if i i was a y i would be e dead alreaeady. >> shortly before the making of this film, a local informant in the area disappeared. activists fear the worst but carry on nevertheless. >> people who work with the animal in thisis counttry, the'e afraid. myself, i afafraid, too,

but to be honest, the animal are morre afraid.d. >> we put these allegations to the deputy director of thehe nationanal parks authority, w we remit t is to protect and police ththe country'y's wildld. >> [spepeaking g thai] >> but despite such assurances, evidence suggests trade in wild calves is still ongoing. >> investigationsns in the lalat 6 monthths and conversations hae been had witith traders and elephant ownersrs have shown at leasast 14 wild-d-caught calalve been t traded acrcross the bordr froom burma ininto thai cacamp and we believe this i is juststa fraction of the numbers. >> elephant advocates claim the

presence of s scarred baby elephants at the recent surin elephant festival also highlilight the neneed for urgrt action. >> the world has lost up toto 9% of its s asian elhantnts in thee last 100 years. and unless actually m more is done to prott this species and stop acttivitis such as the illlegal liveve tra, then we're going to lose t the asian elephant in n the wi forever. what we're askiking for is only a registration of capveve bull calvlves so that tthey'rere actually y registered within twoeeeeks of birth. a and toto makehihis ev strtronger, we'rere also o calling for a dna databaase. >> now, wiwith all thihis prooft we have,e, is reallyly the momet to form an ininternational communityty to, you know, push thailand t to really e enforce e law a and finally really prprott the wild elephantnts. >> until then, the plight of burma's wild elelephants contins to hang in the balance. reyes: hell on earth in the heart of bogota. it has been

dismantled but has left a complex legacy behind. i'm elaine reyes in washington, d.c., and this is "americas now." first up: michelle begue shows us how the clearing of bogota's most dangerous zone has shone a spotlight on the city's grave homelessness problem. then, a tide of brazilian immigrgration ows s in portugal. a return to the motherland and what it means for both countries.