The fight for life

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Sooriyawewa villagers battle elephants in a new frontier war caused by development

Text and Pix by Shehan Gunasekara 

Families belonging to the Sooriyawewa Divisional Secretariat know better than anyone what it is like to be part of a battle against nature. Their enemy? Elephants. 

“Elephants enter the village about six in the afternoon. It is like being hit by a tsunami, they destroy everything. If they manage to enter a house, the first thing they do is grab the main wooden support of the roof and pull. If the walls give way, then everything falls onto the people inside the house. Wildlife officials only arrive after someone has died. If people protest, they don’t even bother to come. One day a man who was walking near the Sooriyawewa Cricket Stadium at about nine at night was trampled to death,” said G. Gnanawathi. 

The arid Hambantota District is deeply familiar with the destruction that elephants cause but the brunt of it is borne by villagers who live on the margins of the shrub jungle. Increasing numbers of human settlements and development projects that are encroaching steadily into the elephant habitat is only making matters worse. Every year an estimated 250 elephants and about 50 people die because of the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. For the people in Sooriyawewa it’s an old and oft told story.  “The elephants drink water from the nearby tanks and then march on the villages. They come trumpeting from different directions. Two will come from one direction, another from the opposite side, sometimes 10 elephants will charge together. People wake up and light large fires around the village, some set off ‘ali wedi,’ but the elephants are not scared. There are about 15 large elephants in this area and they are fearless. When they are incensed they will even walk through bonfires.” 

Gnanawathi and her family settled in Sooriyawewa in 1985. At the time there were no elephant threats. The family did not own paddy land but subsisted on chena cultivation. Small tanks sprinkled throughout the region provided water for small vegetable patches and it was common to see tomato and brinjal plants snaking along makeshift stick frames. 

Gnanawathi and her husband used to earn about Rs. 100,000 to Rs. 200,000 each week from farming ‘thumba karavila’ or Cantola, a small bitter gourd that is revered as a health food. But five years ago the village became trapped in the human-elephant conflict, shattering livelihoods and plunging families into debt.

“Earlier this year my husband planted tomatoes on one-and-a-half acres of land. In April we picked about two boxes. Then overnight 54 elephants broke in and completely destroyed the crop. We now owe about Rs. 800000 to banks and various other organisations. My husband was so devastated he almost drank poison but I counselled him and said we would somehow repay the debt. At the moment all we have to live on is the income from this little shop.” 

Once Gnanawathi starts talking about her life, she finds it difficult to stop. It is almost cathartic for her to speak of the problems she is struggling with. She acknowledges that large-scale construction that took place in the area over the past few years has made the human-elephant conflict worse by shrinking forest cover, but is reluctant to blame it. New highways, buildings and other infrastructure sprang up in the area along with a new cricket stadium and the Mattala Airport.

“There was a lot of development. People don’t live in the dust anymore, we have better healthcare. We can’t say bad things about development, but we have to admit that with the projects done under the former Government the elephants lost some of their homes. They have no food. The people have stolen the rights of the animals. As the elephants had less and less space, they started attacking human settlements more. This never happened before. We need to live but the elephants need to live too,” she said.

In Gnanawathi’s village alone there are 351 houses but the people face severe hardship. Gnanawathi says that in an emergency a patient cannot be taken to a hospital as three-wheelers are too scared to come to the area after nightfall. Elephants have attacked at least 35 houses but the Government that was so keen on these development projects is disinterested in finding solutions.

For most farmers the only course of defence against elephants is ‘ali wedi,’ which is a specially manufactured firework that is given to holders of a special license. Farmers have to collect the ‘ali wedi’ from their Grama Sevaka but only a limited amount is distributed. Farmers also complain they are ineffective. “Each farmer receives only three ‘ali wedi’. If the elephant doesn’t run away after all three are lit then what can we do? The ‘ali wedi’ that is handed out by the Government now has had its explosives reduced. In the old days when we lit them they were so powerful the explosion would dig a crater half a meter deep,” recalled R.A Chandraratne.    

Even though electric fences crisscross the landscape and border roads, residents complain they are ineffective. For the fences to be more effective trenches need to be dug alongside. Farmers contend the electricity shock the fences give the elephants is so mild they barely feel it. Instead they have found their own weapons in this makeshift war zone. Many of them have rudimentary electric fences around their homes they switch on at night. Families also hang glass bottles on their fences so the tinkling sound of them hitting each other warns of elephants outside. Stepping out at that point is akin to waving a welcome to death. 

“When I was fishing on the tank I received a call from home that an elephant had attacked my home. A few days ago two elephants fought here, when we called the Wildlife Department they said it’s Saturday so they can’t come. But if an elephant gets injured they get to the location in double quick time.” 

Another common complaint is that marauding elephants that are captured by Wildlife officials are released nearby instead of being relocated to nature reserves. The Sooriyawewa villagers appeal to the authorities to work together to resolve the standoff between people and elephants and give them a chance to return to peaceful lives and have the privilege of feeling safe in their homes.