China has agreed to provide technical and research support to Sri Lanka for the establishment of bamboo “bio-fences” as a sustainable measure against the country’s long-running human-elephant conflict.
The agreement was reached during an official study tour by a Sri Lankan delegation led by Deputy Minister of Environment Anton Jayakody to the International Centre for Bamboo and Rattan in Beijing. The delegation held bilateral talks with the centre’s Director General and senior officials, according to the Daily Mirror and Ada Derana.
Discussions covered bamboo cultivation, modern processing technologies and the range of industrial products that can be made from bamboo. Jayakody formally requested Chinese support to implement a bamboo bio-fence programme in Sri Lanka.
The Chinese side said it was ready to provide the modern technology, technical expertise, research and development support and best practices needed to implement the initiative. Chinese officials also noted the project could raise the economic standards of local communities by promoting bamboo-based industries, while offering a long-term answer to the conflict.
A recurring problem, and a shift in approach
Bio-fencing uses dense living vegetation as a physical and behavioural barrier to keep elephants out of farmland and villages — an alternative to the electric fences that have dominated Sri Lanka’s response for decades, and which have proved costly to maintain and frequently ineffective.
The scale of the problem remains severe. LankaNewz reported this month that 180 wild elephants died in the first seven months of 2026, 75 of them killed by human activity. Successive administrations have tried a range of remedies, including gazetting elephant corridors and deploying 1,500 Civil Security Department officers to maintain electric fences. The Court of Appeal has also intervened over the Department of Wildlife Conservation’s handling of fence construction.
Neither report specified a timeline, funding arrangement or pilot location for the bamboo programme. Ada Derana referred to the Beijing institution by the acronym INBAR, while the Daily Mirror rendered it ICBR.
Sources: Daily Mirror, Ada Derana.
