REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Poor sumatran elephant! Environmental group WWF said on Tuesday that the elephants could be extinct in the wild in under 30 years unless immediate steps are taken to protect its rapidly diminishing habitat.

IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, raised its listing of the Sumatran elephant subspecies from "endangered" to "critically endangered" after nearly 70 percent of its habitat and halve its population has been lost in one generation.

The main culprit is deforestation of habitat or its conversion to use for agriculture, a practice that has also raised the specter of extinction for the Sumatran tiger and the Javan rhino. "The Sumatran elephant joins a growing list of Indonesian species that are critically endangered, including the Sumatran orangutan, the Javan and Sumatran rhinos and the Sumatran tiger," said Carlos Drews, Director of WWF's Global Species Programme, in a statement.

"Unless urgent and effecting conservation action is taken these magnificent animals are likely to go extinct within our lifetime."

There are only an estimated 2,400 to 2,800 elephants of the Sumatran subspecies alive in the wild, down about 50 percent from a 1985 estimate. Scientists say that if current trends continue, the animals could be extinct in the wild in less than 30 years, WWF said.

Sumatran elephants are protected under Indonesian law. Yet, a vast majority of their habitats are outside protected areas and could be converted to agricultural use, IUCN was quoted as saying.

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