Living in peace with the elephant

Endangered species: Wild Life Department sources recently revealed that the number of deaths in human-elephant conflicts in Sri Lanka has increased rapidly. Last year 117 elephants were killed by people, while the elephants killed 68 people. During the first quarter of 2006 some 39 elephant deaths and 16 human deaths were reported.

Although there is no accurate census available, it is estimated that about 2500-3000 elephants are still found in the wild, and a further 500 are in captivity. (It is interesting to note that around 1900, more than 10,000 elephants were found all over the island). Since 1950, it is likely that more than 4,000 elephants would have been lost as a direct consequence of the conflict between man and elephant.

Fading habitats

What is really happening? It is obvious that the elephant is really running out of space in Sri Lanka. Most of the protected areas inhabited by elephants are small, less than 1,000 sq. km in size, nevertheless elephants, especially the bulls, may range over hundreds of square kilometres in the course of a season.

Their sheer size and gargantuan appetite mean that elephants and people cannot live together where agriculture is the dominant form of land use, unless the damage they cause to farmers can be compensated.

There are no easy solutions for resolving the human elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. Much will depend on how people perceive the worth of the elephant. We, Sri Lankans were having a long cordial association with the elephants.

During the reign of our ancient kings, elephants were tamed and used in large numbers for the awesome construction work. Large palaces, temples and vast reservoirs had been built with the aid of elephants. Those were good days when forest cover in the country was exceedingly high and both man and elephant had enough land to share without invading the other.

Today the elephants are increasingly hemmed in by human settlements and man-made obstacles like electric fences. The area they inhabit is becoming increasingly crowded with people and their crops, and as the elephants lose more and more of their territory. They are competing with people for natural resources.

The elephants make forays into human settlements when crops are ripening and often eat or trample a family's entire crop. A common response to raiding elephants is to fire at the elephants with guns, or to request rangers from the Department of Wildlife to come and remove them (either by chasing or shooting). As a result, many elephants have been shot at and others injured or killed by gunfire. Those elephants that escape or survive with bullet wounds are more aggressive than ever, and know that humans are the source of their fear.

The people also display very little knowledge of natural history of the area and minimal or no understanding of basic animal behaviour and biology.

It appears that lack of understanding and lack of calm controlled exposure to elephants has exacerbated fear and hostility towards elephants.

The most likely outcomes are lethal removal of the elephants (by killing them), capture and translocation of the elephants, or establishment of refuges for the elephants. Each of these proposals obviously has drawbacks. Killing the elephant makes surviving elephants even more dangerous.

Removal of elephants either by killing or capture removes an important population of elephants that may still remember migration routes.

Living in harmony

Some wildlife managers now believe that the key to finding a long-term solution to the elephant problem is to ensure that people derive some benefit from their presence in areas where humans and elephants do overlap.

Our Department of Wildlife Conservation has plans to promote economic activities that would enable the local communities to derive some tangible benefits from the presence of elephants in their neighbourhood. e.g. manufacture of paper from elephant dung, organic farming using elephant dung, production of biogas using a combination of elephant and cattle dung etc.

Although the threat of extinction looms high for our elephant, unfortunately, our economic situation has made it practically impossible for the Wild Life Department to manage their resources or to enforce laws effectively.

If our elephants are to survive in perpetuity, experts believe that three major challenges need to be met head-on:

1. Protect the remaining elephant populations and their habitat against further loss by creating and managing special protected areas. (For example, perpetrators of elephant killings should be severely punished, and not with a simple fine of Rs. 2,500).

2. Promote co-existence between people and elephants in and around these protected areas by developing and implementing sound administrative practices.

3. Restore the congenial relationship that existed between our people and elephants for thousands of years through education and awareness programmes.

In the final analysis, all conservation efforts would be futile without the support of the Government, people and NGOs, financially and otherwise. That is the key to the solution.