With regard to the alleged plans to establish more managed elephant reserves, conservationists questioned the purpose of declaring more such reserves, claiming that the relevant law still does not have teeth and is yet to be properly implemented.

This was in connection with the alleged plans to declare more such reserves in the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts, parallel to the Wildlife authorities’ programmes to reduce the human-elephant conflict in the two districts.

In this regard, conservationist and researcher Supun Lahiru Prakash urged the Government to pay attention to managed elephant reserves, adding that such reserves gazetted four years ago need to be given legal powers through enactment in order to administer the relevant regulations. He added that although including such reserves in the Greater Hambantota Development Plan was a historical decision, especially in wild elephant conservation and human-elephant conflict mitigation, it has been limited to signboards for many years. Even though a gazette notification (Number 2222/62) of the ‘Hambantota Managed Elephant Reserve’ was published in 2021, he added, it is yet to be properly implemented.

In addition to legal reforms, he said that steps should be taken to remove encroachers from and stop anthropogenic activities harmful to elephants inside the managed elephant reserve in Hambantota and also to acquire all the lands mapped in the gazette. Conducting a survey, and linking the existing forested lands where elephants live outside the reserve and the gazetted reserves, are also among the recommendations made in this regard.

“The concept of managed elephant reserves was introduced to protect the elephant home range outside the protected areas, because after over 60 years of attempting to confine elephants to protected areas, even today, 70% of the elephant range occurs in areas with resident people. The human-elephant conflict occurs entirely outside protected areas,” he told The Daily Morning.

According to Prakash, the main reason behind the Hambantota managed elephant reserve not becoming true is that the gazette did not include any regulations related to the administration of this piece of land, and that no one even knows who is responsible for the administration of the land. He claimed that no action has been taken to stop human activities taking place inside the Hambantota managed elephant reserve, activities that are harmful to elephants. Among these activities are, unauthorised cultivation, soil excavating, and granite mining. He further raised concerns about the lack of action to make this land favourable for elephants or to stop land grabbing including the encroachment of the elephants’ home range.

Attempts to contact the Department of Wildlife Conservation in this regard were not successful.