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Wildlife officials to be armed with AK 47 rifles
Wildlife officials will be armed with Russian-made Kalashnikov AK 47 assault rifles under a Rs. 42 million project to protect elephants from poachers and to save human lives in the human-elephant conflict, the Cabinet has decided.
These weapons, more sophisticated than the standard issue of Chinese-made T-56 assault rifles, are to be bought on a recommendation by Sustainable Development, Wildlife and Regional Development Minister, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka. The total number of AK 47s to be imported is 2,568.
Field Marshal Fonseka’s Deputy Minister, Palitha Thevarapperuma, told the Sunday Times that the purchase of assault rifles would be connected with the human-elephant conflict, caused mainly as a result of people encroaching into the jungle habitats of elephants. “At present wildllife officials are reluctant to intervene when civilians and elephants are threatened,” he said.
The proposal is for the purchase of 1,500 firearms this year, each valued at Rs.16,000 with the total cost at Rs. 24 million. Next year, 1,068 weapons, each valued at Rs. 17,000 would be bought at a cost of Rs. 18 million. Of these, 2,334 firearms will be issued to small maintenance groups at wildlife parks, while 234 will be issued to Assistant Rangers.
The new proposal envisages the construction of a 2,651 km long electric fence in places identified as having elephant threats. This will be connected to the existing electric fence of about 4,349 km.The Deputy Minister said they had identified the cadre requirements of around 1,000 new personnel for the Wildlife Department, including 20 veterinary surgeons, 117 wildlife rangers, 234 assistant rangers, 234, wildlife guards, 19 development officers, 150 heavy machinery operators and 200 drivers.
He said they would also deploy Civil Defence Force personnel and maintenance officers for around-the-clock surveillance.
In the past five years, some 375 people have died in incidents related to the human-elephant conflict, with 1,177 elephant deaths and 5,800 instances of property damages also being reported.
| Wildlife group fires at move to buy guns The Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) yesterday questioned the decision to buy automatic weapons to solve the elephant-human conflict, warning this could lead to the deaths of more elephants. The WNPS also said it believed that extending the electric fences would not be the answer to the crisis. What was needed was to re-position the existing fencing to places where they would be more effective. “More than 70 percent of wild elephants live outside of protected areas. That is where most of the conflicts take place,” the group said. It is alleged that political expediency rather than the results of scientific research and conservation | |