Ministerial Committee to be appointed on human-elephant conflict

• PM tells P’ment committee to meet monthly to evaluate effectiveness of proposals 
• Says 177km of electric fences need repairs in Polonnaruwa 

By Ashwin Hemmathagama – Our Lobby Correspondent

The Government will appoint a committee comprising ministers responsible for wildlife and forests to meet on a monthly basis with department heads and the lawmakers representing areas under wild elephant attacks to evaluate the progress of preventive measures, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in Parliament this week. 

Responding to a question for oral answers on the increased numbers of attacks reported in the Polonnaruwa District, the Prime Minister accepted that there was loss of lives, property damages and destroying of agricultural lands. 

Updating Parliament on the progress of the current preventive measures in the Polonnaruwa District, the Prime Minister said: “In Polonnaruwa District there are 718.88km of electric fences preventing the elephants from entering villages. The Civil Defence Department has assigned 272 workers to maintain these electric fences in addition to the 60 workers allocated to manage the wild elephants. We have identified 177km of electric fence in Polonnaruwa District that needs repairing. We have instructed the authorities to finish repairs within three months. The construction of the electric fence comes under the Department of Wildlife Conservation and the maintenance is carried out by the Department of Civil Defence.”

However, the Prime Minister also proposed the isolation of dangerous wild elephants in a special detention centre. “Another possibility is to capture the wild elephants that threaten people’s lives and relocate them in detention centres especially built for wild elephants. In Horowpathana we have already established a detention centre to house dangerous wild elephants. Using firecrackers scares the elephants and prevents them from entering human habitats. We have already started a process to issue these special firecrackers used to scare elephants,” he explained.