The government last Tuesday has taken a vital decision
towards resolving the long standing issue of human elephant conflict. The
cabinet has decided to leave the traditional elephant paths for the elephants
and remove the unauthorized settlers from such paths giving them alternate
land.
This is the first time we have decided to change the
changeable without sticking to the futile attempt of trying to change the
behaviour of the animals still in the wild. What happened earlier was to take
the side of the people who have encroached on the territory of the wild animals
and use electric fences and various artificial ways of controlling elephants
which often did not work.
Keeping the electric fences live all 365 days of the year
was not a practically possible thing and with the slightest opportunity the
pachyderms used to break into the villages and destroyed life and property.
This has been happening repeatedly for quite a long time, the problem got
highlighted in the media when some destruction occurred and often authorities got
the blame for not preventing the calamity.
Elephant paths are determined by factors such as
availability of water and fodder depending on rain and drought and they are not
easily changeable as the elephants are used to travelling along these paths for
hundreds of years.
Therefore it is very logical to recognize this reality and
change the unplanned human settlements on the borders of forest reserves. This
could be a fresh opportunity to look at the problem rationally and provide
these settlers with suitable land with better facilities under proper guidance
of the government.
Going hand in hand with this development is the decision
taken by President Maithripala Sirisena to stop all illegal land filling in the
Western Province irrespective of whether such filling has already begun or been
partially done with the blessing of the local politicians.
The same way the human settlements interfered with the
traditional path of the elephants, the unauthorized land fillings have often
blocked the natural course of the water flow. While the former often infuriate the
elephants, the latter result in floods. Interference with the nature, in
whatever way has always proved to be destructive causing loss of human life at
the end.
Both these decisions by the government are quite timely and
appropriate. However their implementation could be quite cumbersome because
nothing could be achieved without the co-operation of the local politicians who
have often been at the bottom of these issues.
So, there is a need for specific measures to oversee and monitor the implementation
of these new decisions taken by the government.
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