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Human-elephant conflict to be resolved

by Florence Wickramage

The Department of Wildlife Conservation is planning immediate action to solve the Human-Elephant conflict in the North-Western and Southern Provinces where the problem is regarded as extremely severe, official sources told the Daily News yesterday.

According to statistics of the last ten years around 110 deaths of elephants and 60 humans occur annually in the Southern and North Western Provinces alone.

The Department is also studying the recommendations of the two workshops held at Anuradhapura and Hambantota on the conflict. The recommendations of the Hambantota workshop highlighted the necessity of driving to Lunugamvehera and Uda Walawe elephants who would be trapped in the Walawe area once the proposed Walawe Left Bank Project of the Mahaveli Development Programme gets underway.

Already the Wildlife Department has declared the Wilpattu-Karuwalagaswewa Corridor as the Tabbowa Sanctuary which would be connected to Kalalla-Pallekele as a strict domain of the elephants.

In the North-Western province the Minneriya-Kaudulla-Somawathiya Sanctuary would be connected to Ritigala and back to Minneriya to provide a safe habitat for the elephants. This project handled by the Wildlife Department is partially funded by the Protected Area Management Project (PAMP). A major part of the human-elephant conflict would be solved once these two projects planned for the North Western and Southern Provinces are completed which would save to a great extent the lives of both humans and elephants, sources said.

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