Before Sri Lanka’s elephants disappear

World Elephant Day, observed on 12 August, is more than an occasion to celebrate the majesty of Sri Lanka’s elephant but a moment of reckoning.  The Sri Lankan elephant, an endemic subspecies, is facing a terrible fate. Over 450 elephants are estimated to die each year as a result of the human-elephant conflict, while around 150 human lives are also lost. They represent a deepening ecological and humanitarian crisis that has persisted for decades despite successive interventions.

For years, the principal response has been to drive elephants into protected areas. That approach has failed. More than 70% of the elephant population now lives outside national parks and sanctuaries. The reality is clear that elephants cannot simply be confined to protected areas while human settlements, farms, roads and other development continue to expand across their traditional ranges.

The National Action Plan for the Mitigation of Human-Elephant Conflict, published in 2020, remains the most scientifically grounded and comprehensive plan developed to address the crisis. Crucially, it does not depend on attempting to imprison elephants within protected areas. It envisages measures that protect people, settlements and agriculture while allowing elephants to move through landscapes in ways that are compatible with human activity.

The tragedy is that this plan remains largely unimplemented. The Government must now move beyond short-term political responses and implement science-based policies consistently. This means protecting elephant corridors, improving land-use planning, strengthening early-warning and community protection systems, investing in appropriate barriers where necessary, and ensuring that farmers are not left to bear the costs of living alongside elephants. It also means accepting that there is no single technological or physical solution to a problem rooted in how humans and elephants share the same landscape.

The debate over elephants in captivity also deserves serious attention as well. In this month of the Kandy Esala Perehera, the use of elephants in religious pageants, will rightly come under increasing scrutiny. This is especially relevant as Sri Lanka considers a new animal welfare law to replace the 1907 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance.

The proposed legislation contains important advances, including recognition that animals in captivity are not merely property but sentient beings capable of experiencing pain and suffering. That principle must have practical consequences. Elephants used in pageants should be subject to a strict legal and ethical framework in which animal welfare is paramount. Tradition cannot be an excuse for cruelty.

There is, too, a difficult question concerning Sri Lanka’s captive elephant population. With bans on the capture of wild elephants for domestication in place, the country must confront the long-term sustainability of elephants already in captivity and the options for a future domesticated herd. Captive breeding may need to be considered, though it is far from an ideal solution, and only under rigorous scientific supervision. Any such programme must protect the genetic diversity and long-term integrity of the Sri Lankan elephant rather than turn conservation into commercial propagation.

The choice before the Government is therefore not between elephants and people. It is between continuing a failed approach and adopting one based on science, evidence and coexistence.

We cannot celebrate the elephant on 12 August while allowing its wild population to decline through a crisis that is neither inevitable nor beyond solution. The National Action Plan provides a roadmap. The proposed animal welfare legislation offers an opportunity to strengthen the ethical protection of captive animals.