By Salik Ansar | External Consultant
Emergency at Dahaiyagala Elephant Corridor!
Recently, Sri Lankan leadership has been endorsing illegal encroachment and land grabbing, set to destroy wild habitats at an alarming rate. This deforestation harms the wildlife, disrupts the ecosystem and thus leads to more human-elephant conflicts and other crises. Recognizing this, farmers in southern Sri Lanka last month actually went on a hunger strike asking for relief. They did not blame the elephants, instead asking the government to make good on the promised elephant reserve, the lands for which had also been encroached by development interests.
The Dahaiyagala corridor is narrow stretch of forest that provides access to the larger forest north of our long-term research site, Udawalawe National Park. This corridor is important for elephants to crossover to gain access to much needed minerals and other food sources. Without it, elephants will be unable to move between protected areas, risking starvation. However, with the government as willing accomplices, local area council members aided by thugs have torched certain areas, trying to illegally seize protected land.
Trunks & Leaves, along with most of the environment conservation organizations, are in the midst of fighting with pen and paper to stop these illegal land grabbing and to enforce stricter laws in protecting these forests. Here's what we're doing:
Supplementary crop project
We need to develop agricultural systems that can help farmers live with elephants. As we mentioned in our last report, we are currently working with partners to establish sites for this project. The country situation, with curfews and restricted movement between districts, has hampered progress. Nevertheless, we have identified several prospective areas and communities. Meanwhile, we are excited to have initiated a new working group rallying together partners to secure funding to trial this project on a larger scale in Sri Lanka as well as 3 other countries - India, Thailand and Cambodia (T&L | Socio-ecology Working Group - Trunks & Leaves). This will allow us to test our approach even more broadly and draw insights about what works and what doesn't in these very different contexts.
Updates on the Incense Experiment
It’s a new year and a fresh start for this project, which was stalled last year due to the pandemic. We have finally been able to conduct tests of the incense sticks said to be capable of repelling elephants from crops, developed by our partner, HDDES.
Originally we enlisted 20 farmers willing to participate in our experiment. Half were to test the efficacy of the incense sticks whereas the others were to be monitored without the incense stick. Due to the economic situation stemming from the pandemic, some of the farmers were occupied with other work and decided not to harvest this time around. Hence instead of the initially planned 20, we had 16 farmers who were willing to participate in our testing. Over a period of two weeks, we can gauge if the sticks have reduced crop raids or if they are ineffective. Our field team took a week to get the farmers onboard and set the cameras up in their respective fields. As of today, the testing is in its final phase and by the 4th of March we would be compiling all our data, along with testimonials from farmers and presenting a report for the rest to see. We're eager to see the results!
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