- Forest clearing and fires spotted inside reserve, buffer zones
- Environmentalists warn projects threaten key elephant habitats
- Walsapugala farmers accuse authorities of betraying conservation struggle
- Supreme Court petition highlights gaps in reserve management
Under the scorching sun on 1 March, a group of journalists walked through the buffer zone of the Hambantota Managed Elephant Reserve (MER) in Kapapuwewa, Orukengala, where thick smoke hung heavily in the air. Fires had been set to the scrub forests, making it difficult to breathe as charred patches of land stretched across the dry landscape.
“They (authorities and solar power companies) call these areas scrub forests. But look at the environmental damage caused to wild animals by cutting down and burning trees and plants that had grown nearly 20 feet high,” said Walawa Left Bank Joint Farmers’ Collective President Mahinda Samarawickrama, speaking in anger while pointing towards the smouldering land.
The reserve itself was born out of a long struggle by farmers and residents of the Hambantota region who had been grappling with the escalating Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) for years.
In 2021, communities including those represented by Samarawickrama carried out an 86-day continuous satyagraha and hunger strike at Walsapugala, demanding that the surrounding forest be declared an elephant management reserve. The protest, widely known as the ‘Walsapugala Farmers’ Struggle,’ eventually led to the Government gazetting the Hambantota Managed Elephant Reserve.
However, residents now say that despite the declaration of the reserve, the environmental pressures that triggered their protest in the first place have not disappeared. Instead, they allege that new threats have emerged in the form of solar power projects and other activities taking place within and around the reserve.
Hambantota Managed Elephant Reserve
The Hambantota MER was officially gazetted on 9 April 2021 through Gazette Extraordinary No. 2222/62 under the powers granted to the minister under Section 2(2) of the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance. The reserve spans approximately 23,746 hectares of land across the Hambantota, Sooriyawewa, Lunugamvehera, and Thanamalvila Divisional Secretariat Divisions.
The demand for such a reserve had emerged over a decade earlier as development accelerated across the Hambantota District following the end of the war in 2009. Under the National Physical Plan, large-scale infrastructure projects were initiated across the region, including the Hambantota Port, the expansion of Hambantota town, sports complexes, the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, conference halls, hotels, and expressways.
As land was cleared to accommodate these projects, vast stretches of forest that had previously served as elephant habitats were lost. Areas that had remained heavily forested until the mid-2000s were rapidly opened up for development, leading to a sharp increase in encounters between humans and elephants in surrounding villages.
According to the National Policy for the Conservation and Management of Wild Elephants introduced in 2006, elephant management zones had been recommended in areas experiencing such conflict. The Hambantota reserve was intended to function as one such zone, providing a contiguous habitat for elephants displaced by development.
Current plight
Residents told The Sunday Morning that the reserve and its surrounding buffer zones were now facing renewed environmental pressure due to activities linked to solar power projects.
According to villagers living near the reserve, forest clearing in these areas has intensified the HEC in recent years. Many residents say they are unable to remain outside their homes after around 5.30 p.m. due to the increasing presence of elephants in nearby villages.
During the field visit by The Sunday Morning, several areas within the buffer zones were observed to have been recently cleared and burned. Thick smoke still lingered over parts of the land, while the presence of elephant dung indicated that these areas were active elephant habitats. Beyond the burned areas, several wild elephants were also observed moving through nearby forest patches.
Environmentalist Sajeewa Chamikara, representing the Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR), alleged that solar projects previously halted by the Hambantota District Development Committee had now recommenced under questionable circumstances.
According to Chamikara, irregular financial transactions amounting to Rs 14.2 million had been used to facilitate the construction of an electric fence spanning approximately 12 kilometres from Nagarawawa to Mayurapura and Usagala within the Hambantota MER.
“Today several companies are clearing and burning nearly 1,000 acres of forest along the boundary of the reserve in areas such as Sinukkugala, Orukengala, and Kapapuwewa using bulldozers,” Chamikara alleged. “Electric fences are also being erected across these forested areas, resulting in massive environmental destruction.”
He further alleged that five companies were directly connected to a bribery process in which Rs 14.2 million had been paid under the guise of financing the construction of electric fences in order to obtain approval to clear forests and secure the support of State institutions.
According to Chamikara, institutions including the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority, Mahaweli Development Authority, and Central Environmental Authority (CEA) had failed to intervene despite the destruction of key elephant habitats bordering the reserve.
He also alleged that forest areas originally proposed to be included in the reserve but later removed due to development requirements were now being cleared on a large scale. As these forests disappeared, he warned, elephants that previously lived within them were being forced into nearby villages in search of food and water, worsening the HEC.
Chamikara further claimed that several solar power companies were clearing forests and setting them on fire without conducting proper Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and in violation of conditions imposed in project permits.
“Without these forests and the elephants that maintain the ecosystem, the entire agricultural system here will collapse because the water cycle will be broken.”
Agitations by farmers and community
Thirty proposed solar power generation projects have been suspended in Hambantota with immediate effect as per a decision taken at a District Development Committee meeting on 26 January.
It comes after a proposal by committee Chairman, National People’s Power (NPP) MP Nihal Galappaththi, who insisted on abandoning all projects in the district started on land grabbed by “racketeer businessmen with political influence during the previous regime”.
However, the farmers allege that the companies have somehow resumed their activities in buffer zones and inside the reserve, but now the authorities, including the ruling NPP party, are silent.
Samarawickrama stressed that the authorities allegedly backed by the solar power companies had been trying to deceive the community. “They have been coming into our villages without notification, offering to build houses for farmers or providing water-spraying machinery to win people over. Solar panel companies even sent people pretending to hold ‘interviews’ for local youth just to get a foothold in the area, but our farmer leaders stepped in to stop it.”
“The decision taken by the committee to halt these projects proves that our concerns are valid. Then who gave the permission again to resume their activities without any transparency? Now the authorities are silent. MP Galappaththi, Minister K.D. Lalkantha, and Deputy Minister Namal Karunaratne are silent. They fought with us to get this elephant management reserve gazetted,” he added.
“When we visited the sites a few months ago, we found workers clearing the land and trying to give a false story to the journalists. They thought we didn’t know the facts, but we brought experts to explain the actual law to them. These solar companies are very secretive; they won’t even put their names on the project sites until the day they open. They do this so we can’t research their project reports or find out who they are,” Samarawickrama alleged.
Saman Sudarshana, another farmer, said: “The Mahaweli Development Authority took 8,000 acres of prime elephant habitat and left the animals with land where they cannot live. All the elephant corridors that connect Udawalawe, Lunugamvehera, and Bundala are now blocked by houses, roads, and solar parks, leaving the animals isolated. They don’t have access to water and food. This has led to a tragedy: in just the last two months, four people have been killed by elephants, and eight elephants have died from ‘hakka patas’ (jaw-breakers) or electric fences because they are forced into villages to find food.”
Elephant corridors connecting Udawalawe, Lunugamvehera, and Bundala National Parks are now completely blocked. Specific gaps such as Kolan Gala, Unatu Wewa, and Dahaiyagala have been closed by roads and housing, isolating elephant populations. The Mahaweli Authority has already allowed solar panel installations on roughly 450 to 750 acres.
“We aren’t against solar energy, but we are against ‘solar parks’ that require cutting down our forests. If they want solar, they should use the roofs of houses, not do environmental damage like this and place our lives in danger,” Sudarshana said.
Gayan Manoj, a farmer, stressed: “The Government departments are failing us. The CEA issued a report for a 300-acre project claiming there were no valuable trees, but we went there and counted 37 valuable palu trees. The Archaeology Department is just as bad; they only show up to mark historical sites after the forest has already been cleared. Even the District Secretary claims he is just following permissions granted back in 2013 and doesn’t seem to know what is actually happening on the ground now.”
Ranjani, another farmers’ leader, alleged the current Government’s excuse to carry out the suspended projects was that these had been approved by the previous administration. “If they are to carry out what the previous Government did as it is, why did they come to power?”
The silence of the authorities
Chamikara alleged that the solar power projects had been structured in a way that allowed companies to bypass environmental safeguards required under Sri Lanka’s environmental laws.
“These projects should legally obtain approval through an EIA process under Section 23B of the National Environmental Act,” he said. He explained that under Gazette Extraordinary No. 772/22 dated 24 June 1993, development projects converting more than one hectare of forest land for non-forest use or power plants exceeding 50 megawatts had to undergo a full EIA and obtain written approval.
According to him, companies are attempting to avoid this requirement by dividing large projects into smaller units. “To avoid entering the proper EIA process, these companies are proposing solar power plants of around 10 megawatts each,” he said. “Five separate companies have obtained approvals and long-term land leases from the Mahaweli Development Authority to establish five such projects.”
He argued that presenting the projects separately created the impression that the environmental impact was minimal, allowing them to bypass the full environmental assessment process and avoid public consultation.
An EIA obtained by The Sunday Morning relating to one such solar power company that has begun operations within the buffer zone states that the company is required to hand over all felled trees and cleared vegetation to a compost manufacturer. Therefore, setting fire to the cleared vegetation appears to be illegal, as farmers and environmentalists have pointed out.
Multiple attempts by The Sunday Morning to contact MP Galappaththi, the CEA, and the Mahaweli Development Authority to obtain clarification on the matter were unsuccessful.
Ongoing legal proceedings
The issue has also reached the courts. In 2024, the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ), together with Walsapugala farmers, filed a Fundamental Rights petition before the Supreme Court against the Minister of Environment and several other State authorities.
The petition alleged that the Government’s failure to properly implement and manage the Hambantota MER had led to severe habitat destruction and an escalation of the HEC.
In June 2025, the Attorney General informed the Supreme Court that the Government had taken note of the issues relating to the reserve and would take steps to address them.
The petitioners have also pointed out that although approximately 23,000 hectares had been gazetted as the reserve in 2021, the necessary management regulations were yet to be gazetted. According to them, this regulatory gap has allowed increasing human activities within the reserve, undermining its intended purpose as a protected habitat for elephants.
The case is scheduled to be recalled before the Supreme Court on 16 March.
For Walsapugala farmers, the current situation represents what they describe as an ‘ultimate betrayal’ by the ruling party, which had once stood alongside them in their struggle to have the MER gazetted.
However, Samarawickrama said that protests and struggles were nothing new to the community. “When we were promised development with cricket grounds, an airport, conference halls, and other projects, we believed that would become a reality. But look at what it has brought us now. We will not be misled by such false promises of development now. We won’t allow these solar companies and the Government to destroy this area, put our lives as well as animals’ lives in danger, and damage the environment like this. We fought once and won. We won’t hesitate to resume the struggle again.”