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Elephant trench digging halted, AG tells SC

01 Jun 2022

BY Buddhika Samaraweera Attorney General (AG) Sanjay Rajaratnam PC has informed the Supreme Court (SC) that the Government has stopped the digging of elephant trenches, which was initiated by the State Ministry Wildlife Protection, Adoption of Safety Measures including the Construction of Electrical Fences and Trenches, and Reforestation and Forest Resources Development in an effort to mitigate the human-elephant conflict (HEC). A fundamental rights (FR) petition filed by the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ), and the CEJ’s Hemantha Withanage and Dilena Pathiragoda at the SC in February, 2022, was taken up before SC Judges, Justices Priyantha Jayawardena PC, A.L. Shiran Gooneratne, and Mahinda Samayawardhena on Tuesday (31 May). Speaking to The Morning, the CEJ’s Ravindranath Dabare said that Additional Solicitor General Viveka Siriwardena PC, appearing for the AG, had informed the Court that the Government has stopped digging elephant trenches during the period of the hearing of the petition. The petition is to be taken up again on 29 July. The CEJ had filed the said petition against the digging of trenches around the country by the State Ministry. “The State Ministry has started a project of digging these trenches, claiming that it will help in resolving the HEC. Elephants which are causing difficulties to the villagers are not living in the forests or nature reserves; they are already in the villages. When the trenches are built, the elephants will be trapped inside the villages and will not be able to leave. Furthermore, as soon as the rains come, these trenches will get washed away. This is not a viable solution for a country such as ours,” Dabare said at the time. The petition had been filed naming then-State Minister of Wildlife Protection, Adoption of Safety Measures including the Construction of Electrical Fences and Trenches, and Reforestation and Forest Resources Development Wimalaweera Dissanayake, and Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) Director General Chandana Sooriyabandara as the first two respondents. The petition had stated that although the DWC has recommended digging trenches with a width of 15 feet on the top and 10 feet at the bottom, with an incline, it is reported that certain contractors have been forced by a personal staff member of Dissanayake to dig trenches that are 10 feet wide from top to bottom. Moreover, the petitioners have stated that under the guise of HEC mitigation, the digging of trenches could facilitate the extraction of natural resources from protected areas, and soil and sand smuggling. Thus, the petitioners have stated that a large-scale sand smuggling operation was already taking place in the Manampitiya and Karapola Reserves on the border of the Flood Plains National Park, under the guise of digging trenches.

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