Elephant politics

Wildlife versus Wildlife Department

Point of view

By Keya Acharya

For a nation that needs its eco-dollars, its management of wildlife cannot but invite hard comment.

Sri Lanka has almost 14% of its land-area under biodiversity conservation, the largest in comparison to almost all countries in Asia. Its biodiversity also holds global significance, in proportion to the nation's size.

Indeed, conservation circles and tourism brochures are given to remarking that it's an ecological miracle that a tiny island can even have had the complex ecosystem needed to sustain large herds of elephants.

The managers of this biodiversity are the Forest Department and the Department of Wildlife Conservation, the latter commanding nearly 85% of the country's protected-area (PA) network, in a system that does not appear to have had financial constraints. The five-year $4.2million Global Environment Facility (GEF) project on development of wildlife conservation and protected-area management, recently concluded, was Sri Lanka's largest UNDP-administered project. The government also contributed an additional Rs. 300,000,00 towards its implementation. Another new project on biodiversity conservation, with $40,000,000 from the ADB (Asian Development Bank) is now underway.

And yet a Range Officer from the field lamented recently that nothing has changed in the fifty years since the Department of Wildlife was set up in 1950 and renamed in 1970. Millions of rupees later, field officers still do not possess the fundamentals of PA-management : no uniform, no communication equipment, outdated guns with outdated laws to combat machine-gun toting poachers, not even the rudiments of basic living such as living quarters and drinking water.

"If we shoot a poacher, we get arrested, and then have to pay legal expenses from our own pockets. In a 24-hour job we don't even have a 'risk allowance'. How are we expected to function efficiently?" asks a demoralised field officer.

The money does not even appear to have alleviated Sri Lanka's most pressing conservation problem: its man-elephant conflict. Villagers complain that Rs. 50,000 as compensation for the head of a household and Rs. 35,000 for an adult being killed by elephants, is as inadequate as compensation for crop-damage, which is even lower. The money takes over a year to reach a complainant who is by then overwhelmed by debt from defraying the expenses of cultivation.

A scientist from the University of Peradeniya calculated that the Rs. 540,000,000 GEF project would have fed and clothed 1,800 rural affected families for 10 years. The ADB project's Rs.2.4 billion could clothe and feed these 1800 rural families for 44 years!

"Except for payment of extremely high salaries to foreign consultants and some local administrators of the project, little has been achieved, other than training some of the DWC officials," writes the scientist in a recent edition of Gajah, the journal brought out by IUCN and WWF.

Yet Asian conservationists point out a rich national talent of science, which unfortunately has not been included in framing management policy. Yet another senior wildlife officer in the field complains of there being 'not one single red cent being spent on research'.

The officer, with over 30 years of experience, is now strapped, millions notwithstanding, without the funds to conduct a simple 'banding' exercise to study bird-migrations.

A major deterrent in the field is the clubbing of Wildlife under the Ministry of Public Administration, a structure that has brought a 'top-heavy' politicised stance into management. There are currently 112 DWC officers with an unknown number of vehicles sitting in Colombo, whilst those in the field are winnowed under trivial assignments with no vehicles to carry them out.

Though there is talk of privatisation of wildlife administration, insiders say that unless the clause which allows retention of powers to notify or de-notify PAs by the Minister of Public Administration is removed, not much headway will be made towards improving the present mess.

True, the DWC has, in the past, taken important steps towards conservation by setting up PAs, translocating elephants and executing mitigatory measures such as electric fences and trenches. It is also burdened by political unrest in northern areas with Wilpattu NP being severely hampered.

But, in spite of this, the problem is measures have been ad hoc, without an overall plan in mind. For instance, under the Mahaweli Development Scheme, over 31,000 ha were developed into protected areas from 1983 to 1990. Yet housing ventures are now coming up along the Puttalam-Anuradhapura road between the 10th and 16th mile posts, posing a serious challenge to elephant movements in the area. Or, in Uda Walawe NP, a sugar plantation bordering the park has caused grave elephant raids.

For a country that uses wildlife tourism as a revenue source, it is time to shape up. In November 1998, the DWC invited Professor Charles Santiapillai and Jayantha Jayawardene of the Biodiversity and Elephant Conservation Trust, (BECT), an NGO, to help work out a national policy for elephant conservation. The Plan, which proceeds on the principle that saving the elephant will help save the entire underlying ecosystem, is still waiting. Another similar plan, also put forward by the first national Symposium of Elephant Management and Conservation, is also still waiting an interview with the President. BECT has been unable to get that interview.

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