Allocation of forest reserve land for farming will worsen human-elephant conflict

PRESIDENT Anura Kumara Disanayake who addressed the Monaragala District Special Coordinating Committee recently assured farmers who were in attendance that the Government would expedite the grant of five acres per family in the Wattegama-Kebilitta Forest Reserve's reservation areas while also stating that some of the land would be allocated for some major projects.

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This was in response to the plea by the farmers to the President to intervene to solve their problems as they had lost cultivation lands due to boundary demarcations of the Wattegama-Kebilitta Reserve. This prompted the President to instruct officials to establish a structured mechanism to resolve such land-related issues of farmers.

The area which is under consideration for allocation to farmers is an area of around 9,960 hectares. There are around 3,911 farmer families who were promised 5 acres each, but that has been put on hold due to concerns by environmentalists and legal hurdles.

The President said that once five acres each is allocated to the 3,000 odd farmers, there will be around 3,000 hectares of land that will be left over, and this will be handed over on a long-term lease basis.