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Wasgomuwa National Park, 
Near Minneriya September 21, 2003
TO: All big Huras at the Elephant Simposium, Colombo.

I am the toll elephant in photos you took during your trip to Wasgomuwa Wild Animal Preserve last week. In fact, when you were here, we had just returned after a three months trek from Waahalkada Wewa, near Padaviya tank.

The baby elephant you see just above the toll grass line is my 4 months old baby. When she was born we were still in Waahalkada. We left Waahalkada Wewa in a hurry and I imagine you would want to know why? It's not an experience anyone wants to write home about. You would leave too, if in one evening you walk casually along a footpath and suddenly you get caught up in a deafening thunder.

You open your eyes, and smoke is all around and a baby elephant lies flat on his back, motionless and trunk blown into pieces and entrails scattered out on the sand. That's what happened to my second nephew. Maddumi, my daughter, screamed her heart out at the sight of her first son blown into pieces. The baby had stepped into a 'batta', one of thousands land mines planted by warring humans in this once serene landscape. Who would not want to get out from such a living hell?

Well, the trek was not a walk in the park either. It was interesting, I mean very difficult. Stretch of forests that were once not parks but our only livelihood, had been encroached and decimated by humans. In some places, they had cut our forest corridor squarely in the middle by building a row of houses with aid received from an international bank. Did the folks who conceived the idea ever think that such demographic changes would shake the nature's balance? They proposed the ideas without substantiating them with any longterm environmental impact studies. As they say around here, they were only after the money.

Those little villages had multiplied into a one huge web of communities and tightened our free movement, as we did for millions of years.

These humans don't remember that we were here long before their ancestors waded across shallow strait near Dambakola Patuna. When we squeezed by the villages sitting right in the middle of our age old foraging grounds, do you know how they greeted us?

They shot at us. Literally, every member of my clan had been wounded one time or another in our life time by the callous shots from those folks. Some elephants are hurt and disabled at the hand of farmers, they are stranded in little pockets of forest and will never make it to Wasgamuwa. Every time an elephant walks in here, we greet him with a sense of security and accomplishment. The villagers shout at us with profanity.

The real danger is these little trap guns they mount on our paths. Maddumi stepped into one near Weherabandigala and fortunately the shot only scratched her lower leg. And the pesky dogs in the villages? They think they own it. They just don't let us walk by the boundary of a village quietly. Their barking brings out the villagers and next thing we know is that we are under attack, for not fault of ours.

At Maligawa, I hear that my grandfather's duties have been assigned to a new tusker now. I don't know how does he feel every day to wake up listening to the sound of same tom tom echoing off the misty Kandy lake. I know the feeling around here when the sun rises over Minneriya - flocks of Seru, Wehilihiniyo, and all manner of birds glide across water, singing the symphony of Thamankaduwa to which peacocks dance at the waters edge hours before we had our breakfast! Let me go back to the story of my trek home. From Waahalkada Wewa, my family started south hoping to get to Wasgomuwa, where people like you could come in your dusty vans and greet us.

Last week when you were here, we were having our supper and I am glad you did not disturb us. But the village folks en route? It was a different story. They saw us almost on daily basis, but they acted like that we were out there to steal their harvest. I know its a tough life they have. I don't blame them for being testy. Just as we need acreage to roam freely, they need to make livelihood too. In fact there is not much difference between us: We pick our salad from the trees, they grew theirs on the ground. We feed our babies milk. A few of yours still do it too. But whenour paths crossed friction level got a bit unbearable.

After about two weeks travel we reached Hurulu Wewa, near Galenbindunuwewa. It was very hot and we dipped into a newly dug canal above the tank. That canal was not there when I was young and a bubbly teen.

These humans dig canals all over like wild hogs. Please pardon my analogy! From Hurulu Wewa, looking west, you can not miss the blue mountains of Ritigala. Our plan was to proceed ahead towards Sigiriya but changed heart as we became overwhelmed with the urge to taste the succulent, one of a kind vegetation found in no other place but Ritigala. We camped out at the foothills of Ritigala for few days.

An unexpecgted rain storm lingered out from the south and brought in cold air and it could well be the reason for our change of sense of direction, for, a week later we found ourselves heading north again near Uttimaduwa, a few miles from Nachchaduwa tank.

After seeing electrocuted elephants near Huruluwewa not once, but twice in my previous treks, I took special care to keep our distance from the power lines and giant pylons. In the absence large trees, when we get near those pylons, it is difficult not to scratch against them to get dust off our hide. That's how the pylon with its long strands came crashing down on the elephant who perished at Huruluwewa. Death by electrocution is the ultimate Karma.

I then took my family across the railway track where a few years ago, three elephants were fatally knocked down by a high speed locomotive. We stopped there for about an hour to pay our silent respects, touching the ground with our trunks, safely depositing a few scattered pieces of bones out of sight from humans. I know you are still trying to understand why we do this. Just like your other-worldly customs, we have ours too for a reason. We like to give our fallen brethren the due respects and for ourselves a fitting closure.

Our arrival at the Minneriya Wewa ismatta was such a big relief, even Maddumi ran and danced around at the water's edge. It was a balmy afternoon. We were tired of months of walking, with near escapes from disasters and feeling derelict about ourselves after constant harassment at the hand of humans. Yet, the sight of blue line of water, the fresh air, and the clatter of birds made us feel like we reached the Nirvana. We knew instantly, my family would not be bothered here. This is our Utopia.

Finally, we have a place of our own!.

This letter got longer than I thought. But before I conclude, I wish to propose you a few ideas, so that we can minimize these unpleasant encounters.

1. Create and widen (if necessary) forest corridors between major irrigation reservoirs. If human habitation has already been started in the traditional elephant migration routes, remove those folks, and settle them at government expenses just the same way you resettle families under the irrigation schemes.

2. Have mobile units of trained elephant herders of the Wild Life stationed at critical access points. When elephants wonder near villagers, these units will confront the elephants and steer them away from humans and direct them to their traditional migratory routes. My mother remembers, when she was small, villagers used to come with their tom toms, tin cans, and chased us away during the day time when we got uncomfortably closer to their settlements. What she dreaded most was the sound of Beeranga - the hand-held fire cracking stick.

3. Erect electronic bulletin boards in strategic locations, such as Kandy clock tower, main bus stands, Pettah railway station, etc. These boards will flash a message which read something like this: " 18 elephants killed so far this year. Total killed durng the last 5 years is 180" These billboards has the same effect as the bill boards you see in some western countries announcing cigarette related deaths to stimulate public awareness of the problem. I am sure the Loku Huras at the World Wild Life Fund will kindly participate in a pilot project like this. This is not attempted anywhere else in the world.

But why not in Sri Lanka? 4. Give Animal conservation a prominent position in classroom instruction.

5. Provide more support to Elephant conservation organizations.

6. Increase punishment for anyone who kills an elephant.

7. Declare elephant a national treasure.

8. All locomotives running through known elephant habitats, like Habarana, Mahawa must have speed limits no more than 15 miles per hour.

Elephants always must have the right of way. Finally, please share this letter with your friends who came over for the Elephant Conservation Symposium. And invite them to come and see us next year too. But when they come here remind them to respect our privacy. Just as you like to keep yours, we like ours too.

I like to remind you that we are same in many ways: we love to keep our family strong, we love our mothers, we love to protect our young, and we all (at least us for sure) breastfeed our babies. You and me, we both are attracted to the magnetism of this great land. We breathe the same air sweeping across the smoky mountain ranges, endless rice fields, forests rich in life in this wonderland.

Whether we like it or not, we don't have any other place to go. If we get careless and irresponsible, we are going to lose. As Ian Douglas Hamilton, renowned elephant Hura said recently in Colombo, "if we don't leave enough space for elephants, we will not leave enough space for ourselves (AFP)." I hope this won't become a prophetic statement! In conclusion, I claim one more blessing to this land that you can't equal: only my tribe has the irrevocable right to carry the casket containing the most sacred tooth relic of Budhha!

Lokubanda Tillakaratne , 
University of California, Los Angeles

www.crescat.com

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