Crisis of Human-Elephant Conflict; FALLING BACK ON FAILED STRATEGIES WILL NOT HELP

Sri Lanka's approach to elephant management and conflict mitigation was formulated in 1959, when the recommendation was first made to confine elephants to selected protected areas. After more than sixty years of effort by the Department of Wildlife Conservation to achieve this goal, 70% of elephant habitat still lies in landscapes shared with people

- By Supun Lahiru Prakash

Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed a Presidential Committee in November 2022 to facilitate and monitor implementation. Despite limited authority and funding, some progress was made in 2024: Elephant drives do not succeed in displacing problem males from an area, and that some herds remain or eventually return to their original home range Observations also show that when elephant herds are driven into protected areas, and confined by electric fences, many individuals, especially calves, die of starvation It has now become clear that the current government has no genuine interest in implementing the scientifically grounded and well-coordinated National Action Plan developed in 2022 It appears that the so-called 'Mihikatha' environmental policy presented by the current National People's Power government to gain power-promising proper studies of wild elephant populations, migration patterns, and habitats, as well as public participation programmes using biological and new technological methods to address human-elephant conflictRegrettably, this was nothing more than a deceptive election promise.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in his capacity as Minister of Finance, presented the 2026 budget to Parliament on the afternoon of November 7. It is important to examine the proposals related to mitigating the human-elephant conflict arguably the most serious socio-economic, environmental, and political problem currently facing Sri Lanka. Thousands of elephants, and nearly forty percent of the country's land area, on which people live, are affected.

A failed strategy