CSC to assist Wildlife Dept

Nimal Wijesinghe - Anuradhapura Additional District Group Correspondent

The Wildlife Conservation and Agrarian Services Ministry would receive the full time assistance of the Civil Security Corps members in the implementation of various projects concerning the Human-Elephant conflict.

As the first step the Civil Security Department will be entrusted with the full responsibility of maintaining the total number of electric fences erected in eleven wildlife conservation zones of the country. According to the Wildlife Department sources.

An awareness meeting about this for the wildlife conservation officials was held recently at the Wildlife Conservation Ministry presided over by Ministry's Secretary Udeni Wickramasinghe.

The government has taken steps to erect electric fences covering around 1,800 kilometres in the wildlife conservation zones and majority of these fences have been entrusted to farmer organizations for maintenance and protection. It has been observed that this system has been a failure since the farmers have taken it for granted the maintenance of the fences.

The Wildlife Department on the recommendation of the then Wildlife Conservation Minister S M Chandrasena recruited about 500 Civil Security Guards to the department to be detailed in the implementation of wildlife conservation projects including the electric fences in last year.

Under the new programme nearly 40,000 civil security guards will assist the wildlife conservation authorities to maintain the countrywide electric fences and also the construction and repairing of the fences in future as the first step the Civil Security Department is being entrusted with the construction of the balance length of the Wilpatthu electric fence which is 50km out of 95 full length.