Sanctuary land grab: President hoodwinked?

By Ifham Nizam

Plans are underway to degazette more land area from the Dahayiyagala sanctuary which acts as a corridor for the elephants in the Udawalawa National Park and Lunugamwehere National Park.

A senior official of the Forest Department told The Island yesterday that despite their objections, land clearance was continuing and already between 250 and 300 acres of forest had been destroyed.

Villagers would meet the Forest Department officials tomorrow to spell out their stance, he said, adding that some villagers had been forced by local politicians to part with their land.

Elephants frequently used the corridor for reaching the ‘salt lick’ at the Bogaha Pattiya area, an authority on Elephants, Supun Lahiru Prakash of the Biodiversity Conservation and Research Circle told The Island.

He said a mineral lick, also known as a salt lick, was a place where animals went to lick essential mineral nutrients from a deposit of salts and other minerals. Mineral licks were either naturally occurring or artificial (such as blocks of salt that farmers place in pastures for livestock to lick).

“The act of blocking this corridor used by elephants that live in the Udawalawa and Lunugamwehere National Parks will further restrict their home range and the ultimate outcome will be escalation of human-elephant conflict in the area,” he warned.

Politicians and local administrative officers were also trying to mislead President Gotabaya Rajapksa and use him to legalize the illegal land grab, he said.

Prakash pointed out that the culprits had organised a ‘Gama Samaga Pilisandara’ programme in the particular area and the selected location was also in the sanctuary where the land had been illegally cleared and encroached.

Some 2586 hectares of land were gazetted as the Dahayiyagala sanctuary on 7th June 2002.