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| Monday, 8 March 2004 |
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Enhancing the protection of local jumbos by Dayananda Kariyawasam, Project Director, Protected Area Management & Wildlife Conservation Project. Sri Lanka like other tropical countries is endowed with rich biodiversity. Being an island it also has a lot of endemic flora and fauna. The rich biodiversity and endemicity give it a great global significance. But like most of developing countries Sri Lanka is faced with the problems of a growing population and the resultant pressure on the remaining natural habitats demands that the protected areas be designed and managed optimally and scientifically to ensure long term conservation of their biodiversity.
Regrettably, we have failed to provide for all the requirements of particular species in their need for sustenance, shelter and room in which to procreate and nurture young. This is particularly the case with 'mega fauna' such as our elephant, Elephas maximus. Being a large animal they need a greater area to maintain a viable population in the long term. Elephants are being killed in Sri Lanka mainly because they interfere with agriculture. With their large size and healthy appetites they can totally destroy the entire crops of a farmer in a single night. Between 1992 and 2003, a minimum of 1,479 elephants and 635 people perished in the conflict in Sri Lanka. In the recent past, the conflict has escalated to an alarming level. Currently, Sri Lanka is losing about three elephants a week in the wild as a direct result of the human-elephant conflict. Such a high rate of elephant mortality is unsustainable given the small population and slow rate of reproduction. Carrying Capacity Habitat loss and pressure of the human population have resulted in the decline of elephant population. Because of their large size they require larger areas of natural ranges than other animals and are often become the first species to suffer the consequences of habitat fragmentation and destruction. Erosion of habitats has also forced the elephants to move outside the protected areas and it is estimated that 70 per cent of the elephants range outside the protected areas system. Inadequate attention to habitat management, excessive livestock grazing and invasion of exotic species have led to the deterioration and degradation of the habitat thereby reducing the carrying capacity of protected areas. In extreme situations, such as in the North Western Region which records the highest toll in both elephant and human lives, elephants have become pocketed into small patches of habitat surrounded by a hostile landscape dominated by man. Daily movement of elephants vary from 3-12 km and each travel up to 30 km in search of food and water. The population density of elephants is about 1.00/km2 but they have home ranges of 10-20 km2. According to Santiapillai and Wijewardena (2002) Sri Lankan elephant needs about 5 km2 of land and with the present estimated population of about 3,500 elephants, we need about 17,500 km2 whereas, what we have is only about 8,000 km2, which does not even adequate to contain even half the population we have. In addition, to the requirement of a large home range, the elephant also require 200 pounds of food and about 20-40 gallons of water a day. In such a situation protected areas should be designed to provide for all an elephant's needs so that the stimulus to move elsewhere is minimized. While the DWC is capable of protecting the wildlife within the system of protected areas, ensuring the long-term survival of especially large, highly mobile animals, outside the network of protected areas is a serious challenge. Therefore it is imperative that we develop a network of Protected Areas through establishment of corridors to provide sufficient space and also enrich the habitat to enhance food and water to sustain a flourishing population of elephants. Due to above factors elephants have lost so much of their range and easy access to fodder and water. How to increase As a consequence, they are now forced to prey on the communities that displaced them. Therefore to reduce the conflict and prevent the elephants moving out of PAs in search of food and water, we need to improve the habitat in the PA. By so doing it is possible to increase the carrying capacity of the PA and encourage less movements outside the PAs. Improving the habitat in protected areas by promoting food and water will increase the carrying capacity of the protected areas but unfortunately most of our protected areas, scrub-grass areas in particular, suffer invasion by aggressive weeds such as Opuntia, Prosopis and Lantana, Excessive livestock pressure and hacking of native fuel wood species has encouraged the growth of exotics like Prosopic, Jutiflora (Ketuandare), Opuntia Dillenii (Pathok), and Lantana camera (Gandapana). It is necessary to put back this degraded habitat on a course of rehabilitation by a joint thrust on control over livestock grazing and suppression of weeds. It is estimated that we have more than 10,000 hectares of land infested by Gandapana in Udawalawe and at least half the land extent of Bundala by Pathok and Katuandara. This has seriously affected the productivity of the habitats by suppressing the growth of fodder species. Protected Area Management & Wildlife Conservation Project has operationalized a program to remove the weeds in Udawalawe and Bundala by introducing an adoptive management strategy. The approach is through monitoring of management trails aiming at developing a practical technique for mitigating the spread and density of the invasive species. Building partnerships The National Wildlife Policy commits the DWC to ensure that local people are consulted in the process of decision making, actively participating in implementation, and review direct benefits from the management of protected areas. The task of removing the weeds is entrusted to residents of villages surrounding the park on a contract basis so that the benefits and the money will go to those who have shared the cost of conservation. The experiment is one of the many outreach activities planned by the Protected Area Management & Wildlife Conservation Project to share benefits with the communities living in the buffer zone. An experiment which has given encouraging results while producing benefits to the park as the members of the communities living around it. The demand for land, tenure insecurity and lack of income all make the poorer and more marginalized members of communities close to Protected Areas likely to use protected ecosystems as subsistence resources, farmland and, cattle grazing. Unless local people can derive some tangible benefits from having a Protected Area in their neighbourhood, effective protection of wildlife will not be possible. All these years the Wildlife Rangers and Game Guards used to arrest individuals found inside the parks and prosecute them to protect wild animals from them. The residents in the surrounding villages also did not see the park as a source of benefits to them. This reversal of roles augur well for the park as well as the communities living around it. The Lantana that is cleared is burned and the roots are removed from the soil. The first few rains will encourage the suppressed grass to germinate and cover the cleared areas with lush green grass that the elephants, deer, hare and other herbivores relish. The time has come to shift our strategies and adopt a scientifically based balanced and people oriented approach to Protected Area management that ensures sustainability, accountability and responsibility. Such processes are inherently slow but have yielded outcomes both equitable and sustainable. |
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