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There’s a leopard in your tea

07 Sep 2022

  • Looking at the plantation sector’s disproportionate role in the human-leopard conflict
The Sri Lankan leopard is listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, with less than 800 mature leopards estimated to be alive. Encroachment on their habitat, and poaching have exacerbated the human-leopard conflict.  In the last two years alone, about 24 leopards – including a rare black leopard – have been killed, with 90% of these killings occurring in the tea plantations. The Sri Lankan leopard is a subspecies unique to the island, and also unique to Sri Lanka is the fact that these leopards are apex predators with no competitors, which makes them ecologically and economically important.  Leopard sightings have increased in the tea plantations due to deforestation, human settlements, and lack of awareness about the leopard by these communities. Exacerbating the problem, leopards unwittingly attack cattle or livestock. With plantation communities being, for the most part, economically disadvantaged, they have no incentive to care about leopard conservation. While efforts to raise awareness on leopard conservation among the plantation community is an uphill climb, the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) and Rainforest Alliance have begun a ground-breaking project. In this interview on “Kaleidoscope with Savithri Rodrigo,” Rainforest Alliance Consultant and WNPS President Jehan CanagaRetna discussed the extent of the human-leopard conflict in the tea plantations, and the success of the initial training programmes conducted within the plantation communities. Following are excerpts from the interview:   There’s much discussion around the human-elephant conflict but not as much about the human-leopard conflict. What really triggers this conflict, and how bad is it?   The human-leopard conflict is not in the realms of what happens in India, but in Sri Lanka, in the last three to four years, there has been an increasing number of leopard deaths, specifically in the hill country. This is triggered primarily due to loss of habitat and loss of prey. The fact that its prey is being poached in larger numbers than before also adds to the challenges at hand.   Tea plantations have been around for over 150 years. Does this mean that this human-leopard conflict has been going on for this long – or has it surfaced recently?   No, certainly not; it hasn’t been going on for that long. The reason the conflict has come to light much more is due to deforestation in the last 10-20 years, and as the human population increases, they tend to encroach into forest land much more. Only about 30-35% of plantation sector workers are actually employed on the estates; the balance don’t work, or simply live on the estate doing nothing.  As a result of this, poaching activity has increased. In the last 10 years, the number of leopards killed in snares – those we know of – was about 42. But of that 42, about 50%, or 23-24 leopards, have been killed in the last two years – that’s in 2020 and 2021 – which is a significant number.   Leopards are apex predators, which means they’re also essential to the functioning of our ecosystem. What is the impact that poaching and killing leopards has on humans?   Being an apex predator, it is leopards who take out what we call pests in the agricultural sector – wild boar, rabbit, and peacock. The main “pest” is the wild boar, the leopard’s key prey species, and a massive problem to our crops. Killing a leopard also means a spike in the population growth of these animals, which in turn creates a massive problem for farmers.   WNPS and the Rainforest Alliance have implemented a project to train volunteers from the plantations on leopard conservation. However, the plantation community is generally underprivileged and leopard conservation is probably unheard of in their conversations, let alone sustainability of an ecosystem. How challenging has it been to permeate the message?   As part of the Rainforest Alliance pillar of biodiversity protection, it became necessary to focus on the human-leopard conflict. This led to formulating an education and awareness programme at worker level, which has not been done before.  But there were some challenges, for sure. Most in the estate community have never seen a leopard. They think it’s a tiger and the only picture of a tiger they have seen is associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But the tiger is also called “kotiya”. The leopard’s scientific name is Panthera pardus kotiya, so there are a lot of misconceptions on what a leopard actually looks like. Even a fishing cat is thought to be a leopard.  The first thing the community thinks is “the leopard will attack us”. There are times leopards are hunted for meat and body parts, but in general leopards die because they are caught in snares meant for smaller animals, and with their struggles, drag themselves deeper into trouble. That’s the reason for the increasing number of deaths.  We had to make the message very clear that leopards don’t kill humans, because humans are not their prey species. So while it’s not in their DNA to kill humans, we also had to reiterate in our workshops that a human must never challenge a leopard. The training modules deal with current problems and realistic solutions.   What elements did you bring into the programme to ensure they understood your message?   For one, the training programme had to be conducted in Tamil, because it is the language they understand best. Also, when we began our initial programme, our presentations were at a higher level, but we realised that by making it simpler, the level of understanding would be better. We introduced a lot of animation and made it interactive. For example, we would ask them to hold their breath, and explain that if you cut trees, you won’t be able to breathe. We would also explain that if they cut forests, there won’t be any leopards, and if there are no leopards, the wild boar will attack their crops. The idea was to link everything in a practical way.   Do you feel the programme has been successful?   The programme is specific to tea plantations, because the problems in the dry zone areas like Yala or Wilpattu are different. We plan to cascade the programme to as many estates as possible and also have a follow-up programme in the areas we have already been, as we really don’t know enough about the leopards that live in the estate sector.  But I do know that awareness has increased, after the person who had a leopard chase a dog into his home acted exactly the way we had instructed him to. This was the first time to our knowledge that a leopard had gone into a home, although it happens a lot in India.  The instructions in our workshop in an instance like this was: “When you see a leopard, back yourself out of the house, keep eye contact, lock the door, and call the wildlife authorities.” He did exactly as instructed, and after an 11-hour operation, the leopard was tranquilised and taken out of the house. This alone is evidence that the programme is gaining traction.


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