By Rathindra Kuruwita

Given that abusive land use patterns are the main reason for human-elephant conflict, one of the best ways to address this issue is the establishment of the National Land Commission, as stipulated by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, environmentalist Sajeewa Chamikara told The Island.

The establishment of the Commission will minimize the ability of the governments to misuse land to benefit their political and business allies, at the expense of public welfare and the environment, he said.

“There is a lot of talk about full implementation of the 13A. However, no one talks about the Land Commission because this will be politically inconvenient,” he said.

Addendum II of the 9th schedule of the 13th Amendment states that a National Land Commission must be established. One of the main tasks of the National Land Commission is the preparation of a National Land Policy. However, the National Land Commission has not been established yet, although the 13th Amendment was passed in 1987, he said.

“The law states that the government must establish a National Land Commission, that it must prepare a National Land Policy and that representatives from all provinces must be represented in this Commission. The Commission needs a secretariat that has the technical capacity to analyze the social, economic and physical aspects of land use. The law also states that the National Land Policy must be based on science and not on political or ethnic factors. The Commission must look at soil, weather, rainfall, soil erosion, forest cover, environmental and economic factors and come up with general principles on land use. The Provincial Councils must implement their policies, based on the National Land Policy,” he said.

None of the governments have been interested in implementing this because it can prevent land grabbing and deforestation to the benefit of the rich and powerful, he said.

Chamikara said that even the biggest proponents of 13A ignore this provision because almost everyone is tied to big business.He pointed out that there are several bad land use practices that are intensifying the human-elephant conflict.

One of the main reasons for increasing the human-elephant conflict is that the elephants are running out of food, inside the forests, due to human activities, the environmentalist said.

He said that in Hambantota a large number of cattle are let loose in Lunugamvehera, Udawalawa, Madura Oya and Gal Oya national parks due to the influence of parliamentarians. The cows eat plants that are usually consumed by elephants, and other wild animals, and this has resulted in elephants entering human settlements in search of fodder.

“Some people, who live close to the forests, expand their farmlands and build new houses, after cutting down trees. In the past few decades, several invasive plant species, too, have spread into forests, replacing plants that were consumed by animals. Moreover, forests are increasingly getting fragmented, and the government has no plans to control these developments. All these compel elephants to enter villages,” he said commenting on the increased human- elephant conflict in Hambantota.

Chamikara said that the attempts to regrow forests with trees that only have value as timber, i.e., teak, also contribute to the human-elephant conflict because these trees do not provide food for animals. Another factor that attracts elephants to these villages is the establishment of garbage dumps. Elephants and other animals who have been starved are attracted to these garbage dumps.

“The Cabinet paper, titled ‘Taking action to prevent elephants from being attracted to garbage dumps,‘ which was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, on 30 May, 2017, stated that there are 54 such garbage dumps that are attracting elephants. These sites are located in the dry and intermediate zones of Sri Lanka,” he said.

In addition, some people, who live in the dry and intermediate zones, set fire to forests during the dry season (July/September). This is another reason for elephants to come into villages. The recent forest fire that destroyed over 2,000 palmyrah trees in Kilinochchi can be one such fire, he said.

“There are a large number of forests, where elephants live, that come under the purview of the Mahaweli Authority and the Forest Conservation Department. However, when electric fences are established,the above-mentioned forests are ignored often and only forests that come under the Wildlife Conservation Department are fenced. Moreover, some of these fences are erected, obstructing the paths elephants use to reach tanks during the dry season. In recent years, a number of human settlements have been established, covering the above-mentioned paths,” he said.

In recent times, companies and powerful businessmen, who run large scale commercial agricultural projects and other development projects, have started erecting electric fences without considering how these would affect the human-elephant conflict, Chamikara said. These leave villages, and the farms of small scale farmers, more exposed to elephants.

“Most of the electric fences are substandard, are not properly maintained, and bio barriers have not been established along the fences. These make these fences ineffective,” he said.