News
MONLAR lashes out at Wildlife Dept. for failure to protect elephants
By Rathindra Kuruwita
The Department of Wildlife has given up efforts to protect elephants in the country, Sajeewa Chamikara of the Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR) has said. Addressing a gathering at the launch of his book, Sanwardana Jawaramen bihikala Ali minis getuma (The Human-Elephant Conflict: A Creation of the Development Racket), on Wednesday, Chamikara said successive governments had been trying to convince people that there were too many elephants in the country.
“They would want people to believe that the human-elephant conflict (HEC) is due to the excess of elephants. A lot of time and resources are expended to propagate this lie and a large number of people have come to believe it. The government wants to get rid of the elephants to implement the National Physical Plan,” Chamikara said.
“The number of elephants killed in 19 years from 1951 to 1969 was 1,163. This works out to about 61 elephant deaths a year.
“However, 5,010 elephants have been killed in the 19-year period from 2004 to April 2023.
“Last year saw the highest number of elephant deaths recorded since the country’s Independence; 433 elephants were killed. The highest number of human deaths also occurred due to elephant attacks in the same year. The number of human casualties were 145.
“In the 34 years from 1990 to April 2023, a total of 6,642 elephants have died. About 70% of them were killed by humans as a result of the human-elephant conflict. Meanwhile, 2,032 people were killed in elephant attacks in the 26 years from 1998 to April 2023.
Many believed that an increase in the elephant population had contributed to the human-elephant conflict. However, there was no evidence to suggest that the elephant population is on the rise.
“In the decades following the year 2000, elephant habitats have dwindled. Elephant fences have been erected without a plan throughout the dry zone, fragmenting forests. These fences have separated forests that are under the purview of the Wildlife department, the Forest Conservation department, and the Mahaweli Authority from each other.
“These are all state entities. Because of these turf battles, elephants can’t move between forests. This is because erecting electric fences has become a money-making enterprise. Then unplanned settlements and large-scale commercial agricultural projects, which are recommended under the National Physical Plan, the IMF and the World Bank, too, have contributed to the reduction of elephant habitats.”
Chamikara also said that the quality of the surviving habitats too had deteriorated over time. Invasive plant species had spread in large swaths of forest land where elephants live, and about 54 garbage dumps had been established near forest reserves. Those factors draw elephants out of protected areas, he said.
“We also try to send as many tourists as possible to areas where there are lots of elephants. And this is a disturbance to elephants, and they try to escape this by going out of forest reserves into human settlements. This is another cause of human-elephant conflict,” Chamikara said.
The Government’s ‘Rebuilding Sri Lanka’ Fund, established to provide relief and support to communities affected by Cyclone Ditwah, continues to receive financial contributions on a daily basis.
Accordingly, the Containers Transport Owners Association made a financial contribution of Rs. 1.5 million, while the Association of SriLankan Airlines Licensed Aircraft Engineers contributed Rs. 1.35 million to the Fund.
The respective cheques were formally presented to the Secretary to the President, Dr. Nandika Sanath Kumanayake, at the Presidential Secretariat on Friday (19).
The occasion was attended by W. M. S. K. Manjula, Chairman of the Containers Transport Owners Association, together with Dilip Nihal Anslem Perera and Jayantha Karunadhipathi.
Representing the Association of SriLankan Airlines Licensed Aircraft Engineers were Deshan Rajapaksa, Samudika Perera and Devshan Rodrigo handed over the cheque.
A meeting between Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya and a delegation of UNICEF representatives was held on Saturday, (December 20) at the Prime Minister’s Office.
During the meeting, the Prime Minister explained the measures taken by the Government to ensure the protection of the affected student community and to restore the damaged school system, as well as the challenges encountered in this process.
The Prime Minister stated that reopening schools located in landslide-prone areas would be extremely dangerous. Accordingly, the Government is focusing on identifying such schools and relocating them to suitable locations based on scientific assessments.
The Prime Minister further noted that financial assistance has been provided to students affected by the disaster, enabling parents to send their children back to school without an additional financial burden. Emphasizing that school is the safest place for children after their homes, the Prime Minister expressed confidence that the school environment would help restore and improve students’ mental well-being
The Prime Minister also highlighted that attention has been given to several key areas, including the relocation of disaster-affected schools, restoration of school infrastructure, merging and operating certain schools jointly, facilitating teaching and learning through digital and technological strategies, and providing special transportation facilities. She emphasized that the Government is examining these issues and is committed to finding long-term solutions.
The UNICEF representatives commended the Government’s commitment and the initiatives undertaken to restore the education sector and assured their support to the Government. Both parties also discussed working together collaboratively on future initiatives.
The meeting was attended by the UNICEF representatives to Sri Lanka Emma Brigham, Lakshmi Sureshkumar, Nishantha Subash, and Yashinka Jayasinghe, along with Secretary to the Ministry of Education Nalaka Kaluwewa, Director of Education Dakshina Kasturiarachchi, Deputy Directors Kasun Gunarathne and Udara Dikkumbura.
(Prime Minister’s Media Division)
Drug controversy:
“Setting up state-of-the-art drug testing facility will cost Rs 5 billion”
Activists call for legal action against politicians, bureaucrats
Serious questions have been raised over Sri Lanka’s drug regulatory system following revelations that the National Medicines Regulatory Authority’s (NMRA) quality control laboratory is not accredited by the Sri Lanka Accreditation Board (SLAB), casting doubt on both the reliability of local test results and the adequacy of oversight of imported medicines.
Medical and civil rights groups warn that the issue points to a systemic regulatory failure rather than an isolated lapse, with potential political and financial consequences for the State.
Chairman of the Federation of Medical and Civil Rights Professional Associations, Specialist Dr. Chamal Sanjeewa, said the controversy surrounding the Ondansetron injection, which was later found to be contaminated, had exposed deep weaknesses in drug regulation and quality assurance.
Dr. Sanjeewa said that the manufacturer had confirmed that the drug had been imported into Sri Lanka on four occasions this year, despite later being temporarily withdrawn from use. The drug was manufactured in India in November 2024 and in May and August 2025, and imported to Sri Lanka in February, July and September. On each occasion, 67,600 phials were procured.
Dr. Sanjeewa said the company had informed the NMRA that the drug was tested in Indian laboratories, prior to shipment, and passed all required quality checks. The manufacturer reportedly tested the injections against 10 parameters, including basic quality standards,
pH value, visual appearance, component composition, quantity per phial, sterility levels, presence of other substances, bacterial toxin levels and spectral variations.
According to documents submitted to the NMRA, no bacterial toxins were detected in the original samples, and the reported toxin levels were within European safety limits of less than 9.9 international units per milligram.
Dr. Sanjeewa said the credibility of local regulatory oversight had come under scrutiny, noting that the NMRA’s quality control laboratory was not SLAB-accredited. He said establishing a fully equipped, internationally accredited laboratory would cost nearly Rs. 5 billion.
He warned that the failure to invest in such a facility could have grave consequences, including continued loss of life due to substandard medicines and the inability of the State to recover large sums of public funds paid to pharmaceutical companies for defective drugs.
“If urgent steps are not taken, public money will continue to be lost and accountability will remain elusive,” Dr. Sanjeewa said.
He added that if it was ultimately confirmed that the drug did not contain bacterial toxins at the time it entered Sri Lanka, the fallout would be even more damaging, severely undermining the credibility of the country’s health system and exposing weaknesses in health administration.
Dr. Sanjeewa said public trust in the health sector had already been eroded and called for legal action against all politicians and public officials responsible for regulatory failures linked to the incident.
by Chaminda Silva ✍️
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