The government will establish 14 new Elephant Control Units in high-risk areas of the Ampara District, part of a package of measures agreed to address what the Daily Mirror described as an escalating human-elephant conflict there.
The decisions were taken at a special meeting of the Ampara District Human-Elephant Conflict Management Committee held on Sunday, chaired by Environment Minister Dr. Dammika Patabendi. The first phase of the 14 units has already begun, with officials told to speed up completion.
Manpower and vehicles
The committee agreed to reinforce field operations with personnel drawn from outside the wildlife service:
| Resource | Number |
|---|---|
| Civil Security Department personnel | 1,463 |
| Multi-Purpose Development Task Force officers | 552 |
| Motorcycles delivered | 38 |
| Double-cab vehicles delivered | 2 |
| Single-cab vehicles due within two weeks | 9 |
The 2,015 deployed personnel are assigned to support the Department of Wildlife Conservation rather than to replace it.
The garbage dump is treated as a root cause
The meeting also discussed a waste-to-energy project as a long-term fix for the Addalaichenai garbage dump, which the report says has been drawing wild elephants into the area. Open dumps are a recognised driver of the conflict: they give elephants a reliable food source close to settlements, which keeps herds returning.
Two further measures target the same problem of animals and livestock moving across the forest boundary. Legal and administrative steps will be taken to stop the unauthorised entry of cattle into forest reserves and to remove herds already grazing inside protected areas.
Village-level committees
The committee decided to set up village-level committees meeting monthly, intended to bring residents into day-to-day management. Those committees will help maintain electric fences and newly installed spring gates — one-way gates that let elephants leave a fenced area but not re-enter.
Context
The Ampara decisions come against a national picture that had been improving. Sri Lanka recorded a decline in elephant deaths earlier this year, with 207 elephants killed, and the Cabinet has approved a national action plan on the conflict.
The report does not give the cost of the 14 units, a completion date, the number of human or elephant deaths recorded in Ampara this year, or a timeline for the Addalaichenai waste-to-energy proposal.
