Searching for Peace

For centuries in Sri Lanka, human beings and elephants have coexisted in a complicated relationship that straddles the fence between harmony and discord. At times admired for their magnificent nature and respected for their place in Sri Lanka’s culture and tradition, elephants and human beings have increasingly been coming into conflict with each other as the rapid growth in human population has caused an increased conversion of natural habitat of elephants into farmland and other land uses. 

The Sri Lankan elephant (Elephas maximus maximus) is one of three recognized subspecies of the Asian elephant and is native to Sri Lanka. Despite the relatively small size of the island, Sri Lanka is home to an estimated 5,879 elephants (DWC 2011). Since 1986, the Asian Elephant has been listed as endangered by the IUCN after the population declined by 50% over the last three generations. Elephants are mega-herbivores, and with the encroachment of farming land into their natural habitat, they will raid the crops of the nearby farming communities, causing economic losses, infrastructural damage, and conflict, which can result in the death of people and elephants (Ekanayake et al 2011). In 2017 alone, there have been 87 human deaths caused by elephants and 256 elephants killed (DWC, SL 2018).

“We were on an elephant drive which we’d been at for a few months. One night, an elephant attacked a villager so we were expecting an elephant attack the next night too. But when it actually happened, we assumed it was about half a kilometre off. We heard noises from what we assumed was the injured villager’s home. We thought the elephant was close by because he kept yelling. There were six of us there that day.

We all hurried towards the noise, assuming we were chasing the elephant, unaware that we were actually being chased. The villager continued to scream. We even took weapons with us. It was night and we had our torches. I was leading and our current loku mahaththaya (officer) was next in line along with others who followed us. 

We talked as we walked along the trail completely unaware that we were being followed by this elephant. He pounced on us and we were taken by surprise. We didn't know how to respond. We recovered quickly and attacked the elephant as it bounded from side to side. Two of our officers took the lead and because we were firing, the elephant charged at those two. They both fell into a nearby hole, and the shooting and noises we made helped drive it away. One of the guys broke his hand too.” 

This is one of many close encounters that local Wildlife Ranger M. Gnanaratne has had with Sri Lanka’s wild elephants. His team is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep the villagers of Thewanuwara safe from invading wild elephants. 

THE ELEPHANT CRISIS

Thewanuwara is a remote village located in a elephant path in the Thabbowa wildlife sanctuary, just over half an hour’s drive from the town of Puttalam. The route towards it is guarded by the same sort of electric wire fence they use to keep elephants outside the perimeter of the 1,239 ha village. When the road isn’t cutting through the forest, it weaves through vast paddy fields that are the primary sustenance of the people here. Thewanuwara is home to 1,133 people, mostly Sinhalese. Conditions here are harsh. The heat is unrelenting, the paths are difficult to navigate, and in the forest just beyond the paddy fields, there are elephants, wild, and potentially dangerous.

“Being on the road after six in the evening is dangerous because the elephants roam about freely,” says Anura Wimalasiri, a resident of the village. “Just in case there is a medical emergency, about four or five of us band together and travel. These days, the elephants move in herds, too. So even when sending our kids to school, the parents always accompany the children or send them during times when the elephants aren't as active. We have a school right here in Thewanuwara, but the older children go to schools outside the village. These children have to go with their parents because it's not safe to send them alone. Elephants can get on to the road at any given time. You can only safely leave the village after 7 a.m. and enter the village before 7 p.m.”

However, the prospect of running into a herd of wild elephants is not the only predominant threat facing the villagers here. There is also the threat to farmers of losing their crop harvests—their main source of income—to the elephants.

A villager from Thewanuwara remembers one such incident. “A farmer had harvested his crops and loaded them into his tractor and didn't have room for six stacks. By the time he unloaded the other crops and came back for the stacks he left behind, elephants had already attacked the stacks and eaten them. It’s not a laughing matter because we farm on loans and then we fall into debt.”

A more harrowing account of the conflict was provided by Anston Leroy Pinto, a resident of Thewanuwara for the past 20 years.

“We live about 2 km away from the elephant border fence. A child was killed near their home. The mother had a narrow escape but the father was injured while trying to run away. Other children in the family were also hurt. They received compensation from the wildlife department after the accident. There are many similar stories like where people have sacrificed limbs to keep themselves or those around them safe, lost crops, and even homes.”

Such is the conflict that has been ongoing between people and elephants, not just in Thewanuwara but in numerous other villages where farming grounds overlap the elephants’ natural habitat. Yet despite this, the residents of Thewanuwara maintain an incredible amount of respect and reverence for the animals.

“We treat the animals as peacefully as possible,” said Wimalasiri and Pinto, “no matter how much damage they cause, we don't shoot at them or anything. We usually chase them away and bear the costs of the loss the next day and pick up from where we left off. We actually love these animals. Elephants are one of our treasures. That's the main reason we try and cause as little damage as possible.”

For years, the villagers have relied on an electric wire fence built around the perimeter of the village to deter elephants from entering. Depending on the weather, the fence is configured to deliver a shock between 10,000 and 14,000 volts. A low amperage of just 120mA ensures the shock is not lethal but extremely painful. 

However, the fence automatically shuts down during rainy weather since contact with water increases the amperage to more dangerous levels. What’s more, the elephants, being extremely powerful and intelligent, have, over time, devised cunning strategies to neutralize the fence and enter the village. For instance, some have used their immense bulk to break the wooden support beams that support the wiring. Some have used heavy tree branches as tools to break up the wiring; and others have even discovered that their tusks are not sensitive to the charge and can therefore be used as leverage to lift the wires off their support beams.

Hence, the electrical fence has proven to be a feeble deterrent when it comes to keeping hungry elephants away from the paddy fields of Thewanuwara and their traditional elephant path.

A POSSIBLE SOLUTION

Since the beginning of 2017, a new innovative solution has been in the works to further alleviate the conflict between elephants and people. The project was initiated by the Enhancing Biodiversity Conservation and Sustenance of Ecosystem Services in Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA) project of the Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment in collaboration with UNDP, the District and Divisional Secretariats, the Wildlife Conservation Department, the Wildlife Rangers, and the community, and funded by the Global Environment Facility. 

Called an ‘Early Warning System’, its sole purpose is to alert both village residents and protection staff of an elephant approaching the village well in time to take evasive action. The solution was conceived by Irosha Perera, a former aircraft engineer turned electronic engineer, and founder of the Sierra Romeo Alfa group, the technological supplier for this innovative intervention.

Manjula Bandara, Field Coordinator of the ESA project of UNDP Sri Lanka stated that, “Given that this was a community that reported daily confrontations (with elephants), we wanted to find out how this new system would perform in a high frequency area. Trying it out here gives us more insight and experience on how this technology works in the field and what modifications we can make to improve it.”

Still in its pilot phase, this project is being tried for the first time ever in Thewanuwara and, if successful, could be deployed in other villages around Sri Lanka that have human-elephant conflict.

The system works by forming a virtual detection fence that runs parallel to the electrical fence marking the outer perimeter of the village. The virtual fence is marked by a line of sensory beams that form an infrared boundary between them. If an elephant crosses between any two beams, its presence and location is immediately identified by the system and an alarm is sent to the villagers. The technology is configured specifically to respond to the movements of elephants. As Irosha Perera puts it, “there are three levels, and an alarm is only raised if there is a delay in all three levels. Then we check why the beam was broken. This could be a bird, and the delay has to be assessed with an elephant’s speed and size in mind. An elephant usually takes at least three seconds to cross these beams, whereas it takes a bird half a second, so a bird doesn't trigger these sensors.” 

With the virtual fence still under construction, Irosha Perera also plans to deploy more of the Early Warning Systems within the village by positioning street lamps with infrared sensors at various key locations along the maze. “The street lamp will be fitted with a human sensor and an elephant sensor. If the human sensor gets triggered, the light turns itself off once the human has passed by. But if it’s an elephant, the light will flash and send a message to our computers, located in the grama sevaka’s office.”

Compared to older methods of repelling elephants away from the village, Irosha Perera’s new patented Early Warning System is a step in a new direction. As most human fatalities have occurred due to surprise encounters with wild elephants, this system informs villagers well in advance of an approaching elephant and enables them to evade a conflict before it is too late.

Photo credits - Mahesh Kularatne

“Whenever we host workshops in villages, they keep telling us to fix their problems and the main issues are related to the elephant conflict,” said Director of Planning at the District

Secretariat Office, Puttalam, Mrs. Sandanayake. “The villages are unable to successfully grow crops, secure their homes, send their children to school, or take a patient to the hospital in a hurry. They saw these elephants as a massive burden to their day-to-day lives...

...In 2014, we conducted a workshop on elephants after which the government allocated Rs. 80 million to build and install an elephant fence. But the fence failed as elephants would break it down or it wasn’t maintained as it should have been. The villagers were unable to fix some of the fence mechanisms. So, under these circumstances, people were really stressed and troubled by this. But the work we have started with ESA project brings us new hope to find the balance for coexisting.”

Unlike conventional elephant fencing, the Early Warning System does not separate habitats, which makes it a much better implementation for the ecosystem. Moreover, the system poses minimal maintenance costs and does not harm the environment. In fact, it is entirely solar powered, using batteries only as a back-up power source. Once operational, it will be monitored and run by the Department of Wildlife Conservation. 

While the full effectiveness of the Early Warning System in the field is yet to be uncovered as it is still in its pilot phase, the people of Thewanuwara are already confident that it will work. “I’m hoping that it is successful,” said Anura Wimalasiri, “They held a few meetings and notified us about the process. The majority of us like this initiative, and that means we have to find a sustainable solution that helps our future."

“We need to experiment and save people, animals, and land, so we will give one hundred percent of our support.” 

Puttalam, Sri Lanka