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HEC prevention back to square one

30 Sep 2022

  • Electric fences, crackers fail
BY Buddhika Samaraweera   The Ministry of Wildlife and Forest Resources Conservation, with the support of the other relevant institutions, is exploring new solutions to resolve the human-elephant conflict (HEC), as all methods that are currently in use, such as the construction of electric fences and the use of elephant crackers, are mostly unsuccessful. Speaking to The Morning, an official of the Ministry said: “There are many methods that are used at present to deter elephants, but none of them provide a permanent solution to this issue. For instance, the construction of electric fences and the use of elephant crackers do not help much in resolving the human-elephant conflict. Therefore, the Ministry is exploring new solutions to resolve this issue.”  He further said that the Government is spending nearly Rs. 2.8 billion to purchase about 1.4 million elephant crackers a year, but the use of elephant crackers is not providing a concrete solution to the human-elephant conflict. For instance, he said that an elephant will leave a particular land when someone fires an elephant cracker, but that it will enter another land close by and still cause damage to properties and crops. “The Government is spending nearly Rs. 2.8 billion to purchase elephant crackers to drive wild elephants away. They are being given to farmers and other residents of areas where there are wild elephants free of charge. However, some people are using elephant crackers not only when wild elephants cause damages to their properties or crops, but also when certain other animals such as monkeys cause damages,” he added. Taking into account the matter, he said that the Wildlife and Forest Resources Conservation Minister Mahinda Amaraweera has instructed the relevant parties including the Department of Wildlife Conservation, the Forest Department, and the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute (HARTI) to study new programmes that can be implemented to resolve the human-elephant conflict. Once the relevant institutions present their suggestions, he said that the Ministry would take steps of implementation based on their feasibility. It was recently reported that a total of 410 human deaths, and 1,157 elephant deaths have been reported from January 2019, to April 2022, due to the human-elephant conflict. It was revealed that the human-elephant conflict reported in 131 Divisional Secretariat Divisions, within 19 Districts, had resulted in 407 elephant deaths and 122 human deaths in 2019, 328 elephant deaths and 112 human deaths in 2020, 375 elephant deaths and 142 human deaths in 2021, and 47 elephant deaths and 34 human deaths in the first four months of 2022.  


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