ENVIRONMENT-SRI LANKA: Elephants as Partners in Conservation

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Mar 5 2007 (IPS) - Decades after unsuccessful attempts to minimise the elephant-human conflict in Sri Lanka, authorities are trying out a bold experiment – allowing both mammals to live together in harmony with the environment.

Some 50 to 60 people – mostly chena (slash and burn) cultivators – are killed annually by marauding elephants in search of food. Drives to shift herds to nature parks, away from human settlements, have not been very successful.

New research by Sri Lankan scientists have found that, rather than clashing with the large animals, humans can recruit them as partners in the protection and conservation of these animals generally considered their number one enemy.

Thousands of poor Sri Lankans venture into the jungle and grow cash crops on government land without permits – often in areas which are stomping grounds for the elephants. The elephants see in the chenas an ideal food source. Although illegal, the government has over decades turned a blind eye to chena cultivations because of a shortage of employment.

In the experiment based on scientific data, the Department of Wildlife Conservation and scientists are embarking on a model project to ensure that elephants and cultivators live alongside each other, with the cultivators being the protectors of elephants.

Prithiviraj Fernando, senior researcher at the Centre for Conservation and Research, told IPS that the most crucial factor in the recently introduced National Policy for the Conservation of Wild Elephants is finding a viable solution to the human-jumbo conflict.

Elephants and chena cultivation are inextricably linked, says this research scientist – who studied the animals for his thesis and is studying their ecology. He believes the human-elephant friction and elephant management and conservation are complex issues.

He said the plan is to empower chena cultivators who are among the poorest of the poor in Sri Lanka with bank loans and marketing avenues – two areas they struggle with. Bank loans are out of the question for these people as they don&#39t have collateral and don&#39t own the land they cultivate

Farmers also get a pittance for their produce. Fernando says as soon as the yield is collected they can get about 35 rupees (35 US cents)for a kg of string beans, for example, but gradually the price drops to about two rupees (0.02 cents) a kg, often leaving them with huge losses.

The scheme will link cultivators to elephant conservation and make them feel that they are beneficiaries while protecting and conserving elephants and not handouts.

Fernando said during the rainy season, the elephants have plenty of food outside the chenas but the crops could be protected using ancient methods such as guarding the fields from a tree hut and demarcating the areas with a fence, together with modern methods such as electrified fences. After the harvesting, the chenas could be left to the elephants, and earn revenue for chena farmers through initiatives such as eco-tourism, he added. A belt of chenas would ensure fodder for the elephants and stay away from human settlement.

In the normal process, chena cultivators use the land for only about four to five months in a year with the ground cleared just before the rains. Crops are cultivated around mid-October and ready for harvest in February.

Dayananda Kariyawasam, director-general of the Wildlife Conservation Department, says the pilot project is to be launched in areas adjacent to the Yala National Park, the country&#39s biggest wildlife park, in southern Sri Lanka.

Elephants struggle to survive in dense forests because they cannot reach the thick canopy above for their food, while the undergrowth is too sparse for their fodder. The chenas create regenerating vegetation on which elephants thrive.

The model project follows the new elephant conservation policy launched last year in which representations were invited from the public. There are no exact figures of Sri Lanka&#39s elephant population but the number being spoken of by conservationists is around 4,000.

Kariyawasam says that drives have prevented animals from getting shot dead or maimed (by farmers).Though drives may not be the best method of management, in the interim it is an option that needs to be considered.

Most of the elephants that attack villagers are adult males that leave the herd and forage and roam as loners. "These lone males are more aggressive and raid villages and crops. It is rarely that a female herd goes on the rampage,&#39&#39 he said

Not all conservationists are convinced about the efficacy of the new plan. "The policy in its current form will only encourage the practice of subsistence level farming and degradation of habitat," says the Environmental Foundation Ltd, Sri Lanka&#39s best known environmental group.

In views expressed over the policy, the EFL said it will encourage the conversion of forests to degraded chena land which provides more food for the elephant. ‘&#39This conversion is even more absurd considering that those engaged in chena cultivation are amongst the poorest in the land,&#39&#39 it said.