Sri Lanka has recorded a staggering 375 elephant deaths in the past eleven and a half months due to a multitude of causes, according to the Department of Wildlife Conservation.   U. L Thaufeeq, Deputy Director – Elephant Conservation said the deaths include 74 from gunshots, 53 from electrocution, 49 from hakka patas (explosive devices hidden in food), seven from poisoning, 10 from train accidents, three from a road accident, and six by drowning. It makes such diabolical reading!

“The causes of other deaths are due to natural causes or causes that could not be identified. Most of the elephants that died were young,” the official said.

Meanwhile, the human-elephant conflict has also taken a toll on people, with 149 human deaths reported this year.

Accordingly, human-elephant conflict has resulted in 524 deaths of both elephants and humans in 2024.

In 2023, a total of 488 elephants and 184 people have died consequent to the conflict, according to Wildlife Department statistics.

The human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka has escalated to unprecedented levels with reasons like habitat destruction, encroachment, and the lack of sustainable coexistence measures contributing to the issue.

This is an indictment of the Wildlife Department for just giving the sad yearly statistics of shocking losses of our National treasures !

Given the fact that Sri Lanka boasts of 29.9% of the country declared as protected forests, Sri Lanka is a haven for nature lovers. Boasting 26 national parks, 10 nature reserves including 3 strict nature reserves, and 61 sanctuaries, the national parks in Sri Lanka offer an incredible variety of wildlife experiences.

Taken in that context, the million dollar question is why on earth the Wildlife Department is not being proactive to capture these magnificent animals and transport them into protected sanctuaries, thus effectively minimising dangers to villagers ?

Being a Buddhist country primarily, to turn a blind eye to these avoidable tragic deaths to mankind and wild elephants, we should be ashamed !

As a practising Buddhist myself, I think our clergy could play a major part in calling upon the Wildlife Department to get their act together sooner rather than later to protect human elephant conflicts !

Sri Lanka being a favourite destination amongst foreign tourists, they are bound to take a dim view of what is happening on the ground!

If the top brass in the responsible department are not doing their job properly, may be there is a case for the new President to intervene before it gets worse!

All animal lovers hope and pray the New Year will usher in a well coordinated plan of action put in place to ensure the well being of wildlife and villagers !

Sunil Dharmabandhu
Wales, UK

This has reference to the article from the Aircraft Owners and Operators Sri Lanka, titled ‘Closer look at regulatory oversight and its impact on Tourism’, published on Tuesday, 24th December 2024.To explain further, in the beginning there was the Air Navigation Act No 15 of 1950 which was followed by the Air Navigation Regulations (ANR) of 1955. This was long before the national airline had acquired pressurised aircraft, intercontinental jets, sophisticated navigation equipment, satellite communication and automatic landing systems, and ‘glass’ flight-deck instrumentation.

Today, civil aviation in Sri Lanka is governed by Civil Aviation Act Number 14 of 2010. Yet the Air Navigation Regulations (ANR) promulgated back in 1955 remain in force.

These outdated regulations still stipulate rules forbidding the carriage of passengers on the airplane’s wings or undercarriage (landing gear). In short, they are neither practical nor user-friendly. In contrast, the Air Navigation Regulations of other countries have progressed and are easy to read, understand, and implement.

To overcome the problem of outdated regulations, as an interim measure in 1969 the then Minister of Communications and Transport, Mr E.L.B. Hurulle issued a Government Gazette notification declaring that the Standard and Recommended Procedures (SARPs) in Annexes to the ICAO Convention signed by Ceylon in 1944 shall be made law.

Even so, nothing much was done to move with the times until updating of the Civil Aviation Act 14 of 2010, while the Air Navigation Regulations remained unchanged since 1955. However, these regulations were modified from time to time by the promulgation of Implementing Standards (IS) and General Directives (GDs) which were blindly ‘cut and pasted’ by the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL), from the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) Annexe ‘SARPS’ without much thought given. To date there are literally 99 IS’s starting from 2010.

The currently effective air navigation regulations are not in one document like the rest of the world, but all over the place and difficult for the flying public to follow as they are not regularly updated. This sad situation seems to have been noticed by the current regime.

The National Tourism Policy of the ruling NPP states, “Domestic air operations are currently limited due to high cost and regulatory restrictions. The current regulatory and operational environment will be reviewed to ensure domestic air connectivity to major tourist destinations. The potential of operating a domestic air schedule with multiple operators is proposed. Additionally, domestic airports and water aerodromes in potential key areas will be further developed, for high-end tourism growth.”

 “The tourism policy recognises Sri Lanka’s potential to develop Sri Lanka’s aviation-based specialised tourism products, including fun flying, hot air ballooning, paragliding, parachuting and skydiving, and scenic seaplane operations. To facilitate the growth of these niche markets, existing regulations will be reviewed with the aim of attracting capable investors to develop and operate these offerings.”

It remains to be seen whether the NPP government lives up to those promises.

Note:

That OPA report talks of two funds: ‘Connectivity’ and ‘Viability’ for a limited period like three or five years to help jump-start the domestic aviation industry.

The ‘Connectivity Fund’ will cap the seat price for local passengers to a more affordable value to destinations while the ‘Viability Fund’ will assume that all seats are occupied and compensate the operator for any unutilised seat. The intention is to popularise domestic aviation as a safe, quick and convenient mode of transport.

Capt. Gihan A Fernando
RCyAF/ SLAF, Air Ceylon, Air Lanka, Singapore Airlines and Sri Lankan Airlines.
Now A Fun Flier

Three matters concerning universities. The eminent botanist Dr. Upatissa Pethiyagoda asked (17/12) why there were Bachelor of Arts degrees and no Spinsters …. degrees. When universities were first founded in medieval times, the intelligentsia was almost entirely churchmen: priests, friars and monks. There were no women in the clergy. Churchmen held power in studium generale which about the 15th century came to be called universities.

Universities governed themselves, a common feature of many organisations in medieval Europe, where authority was fragmented. (The seeds of present claims for autonomy in universities, bolstered by new and other powerful factors, lay there.) Although graduates from the Arts Faculty comprised the overwhelming majority in universities, and the arts faculty was fons et origo ceteris (source and origin of all others), graduates of the Faculty of Theology controlled universities. For centuries to come this practice continued. The church and, more recently, laymen who governed universities, did not permit the admission of women to universities. In Dr. Pethiyagoda’s university in the UK, women were formally admitted to degrees only in 1948! In Oxford, women had been admitted in 1920-21. That explains why there are no “Spinster graduates”, even though, in some universities, women comprise the majority that graduates. However, change has been rapid since then. The present vice-chancellor of Cambridge University is a woman. The Master of Trinity Hall, one of the smaller but older colleges in that university, is a woman who was an academic in the US, previously.

Then it was asked whether LSE could offer a degree (in The Island, on the same day). LSE cannot, because it is not a university but only a School at the University of London, like the Imperial College of Science and Technology, King’s College or SOAS. Similarly, one cannot get a degree from the Harvard Business School. The model of the University of London was copied in India, when the British established universities there in 1857, the year of the mutiny. (Ramachandran Guha once remarked that two mutinies began in 1857; the other being the establishment of universities whose alumni were a force in pushing the British out of India.) As a result, Delhi University or Calcutta University has large numbers of colleges, where standards of teaching vary widely. The University of Bangalore is reputed to have hundreds of affiliated colleges.

Professor Jan-Melissa Schramm became Vice- Master of trinity hall on 1 april 2023 after filling the role of acting Vice-Master during Lent term 2023. She is Professor of Literature and Law in the english Faculty, Director of Studies in english at trinity hall, and was Deputy Director at CRaSSh between 2017 and 2020. (From Trinity Hall official website)

P. A. Samaraweera, philosophiae doctor, (20/12/24) insists on calling a university degree a title: ‘…(PD) is incorrect in his analysis of a Ph.D. as a title’. Well, of course, Alice (in Wonderland) retorted, ‘I mean what I say’ and Dr. Samaraweeera may assert that same privilege. But korala, muhandiram, maha mudali, professor, archdeacon and judge are titles, not university degrees. B.A., D.Phil., and D.Litt. are degrees and not titles. His appellation ‘Dr.’ is not a title, whereas he may hold the title ’professor’. I went back to history to explain what it is, not what the future should be. He might find it difficult to explain why he, a chemist (say) holds a degree ‘doctor of philosophy’, having never, even in school, studied philosophy. The explanation is in the history of universities. Well into the 21st century, President Emmanuel Macron, a few months ago, opened the University of Paris-Saclay and it will have deans, provosts, and other office holders whose titles derive from the University of Paris which started about 1210 CE. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, Chancellor of Oxford, in the 14th century, had he miraculously been transported to the occasion, may have found the entire setup familiar as he was ‘a French poet, an agriculturist, a lawyer, a physician, and a preacher; ….’ ( Rashdall, Vol.III p.241). He may even have understood the proceedings. Modern universities follow procedures adopted in old Europe: wear your cappa (degree gown and cap) and compare those vestments with what a Catholic priest, a bishop or the pope wears. Need I say more?

Philosophiae Doctor