Prime Minister Dr Harini Amarasuriya has promised strict enforcement of the law against environmental crime and announced a new animal hospital for 2027, speaking at the Presidential Environmental Awards 2026 with the death of the tusker Kavantissa as her text.
The Daily Mirror reported the speech at 2.10 p.m. on Monday, NewsFirst at 10.47 p.m. The ceremony was held at the BMICH.
What she said about Kavantissa
“The tragic loss of Kavantissa is something that has deeply affected all of us. Most of us may never have seen Kavantissa face to face, but all of us felt that we had lost something we knew, something we loved, a national treasure,” the Prime Minister said.
She gave the cause of death directly: “Despite the tireless efforts of wildlife veterinary teams, we were unable to save Kavantissa due to the severe injuries caused by the gunshot and the resulting infection. We firmly believe that the law must be strictly enforced against those who commit such environmental crimes, and we are determined to ensure that happens.”
That is a head of government stating gunshot injury and consequent infection as the cause — on the same day the President appointed a committee to determine the immediate and underlying causes of the same death, and whether there were lapses in the animal’s treatment. Her account of the veterinary teams’ “tireless efforts” also anticipates a question that committee has been specifically tasked to examine.
The Prime Minister said the government was taking legal action over the death, and framed the problem as the killing of wildlife by shootings, set-guns and electrocution.
The enforcement numbers
Amarasuriya set out what the state has put into the field:
- 100 pickup trucks, 185 motorcycles and nine tractors provided to the Departments of Wildlife Conservation and Forest Conservation
- 5,000 Civil Security Department personnel deployed to maintain electric fences, aimed at mitigating human-elephant conflict
- around 1,600 additional officers being recruited for the Ministry of Environment
She said the government was prepared to strengthen wildlife protection through training, by addressing the shortage of veterinary surgeons, and by seeking international expertise if necessary.
A hospital was promised — but not the one that was asked for
The Prime Minister said plans were already under way to establish a new animal hospital in 2027 and to introduce a mobile veterinary service. Sri Lanka already has several animal hospitals, she said, and they must be upgraded and staffed with better-trained veterinary professionals. She added that the government hopes to strengthen education and specialist training in wildlife conservation.
This is the first government response this desk has seen to proposals that have been outstanding since Kavantissa died. Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa called for a dedicated hospital for elephants and an emergency veterinary response team in the days after the death, and this archive recorded on 24 September and again on 19 October that no government response to them had been reported.
The match is partial and the difference is worth keeping. A new animal hospital is not a dedicated elephant hospital, and a mobile veterinary service is not the same as a standing emergency response team for tuskers. Neither filing presents the announcements as answers to Premadasa, and neither says whether the 2027 hospital predates Kavantissa’s death as a plan.
Her willingness to seek international expertise does, however, line up with the committee’s authorisation the same evening to call on foreign experts — the demand Premadasa had pressed and the government had not previously addressed.
Enforcement without fear or favour
Amarasuriya said environmental laws must be applied fairly and equally, without being influenced by personal interests, wealth or external pressure.
That line was delivered on the day two suspects in the Kavantissa shooting — one of them described by NewsFirst as a director of a cooperative society affiliated with the SLPP — were produced before the Mahawa Magistrate and remanded. No filing connects the remark to the case.
The wider argument
Environmental protection must be treated as an essential part of national development, the Prime Minister said: development that destroys the environment cannot be considered sustainable, and protection is not an obstacle to growth but an investment in the country’s future. The government is taking steps to offer incentives for businesses adopting green technologies.
She said the goal of a prosperous country and a better quality of life could not be reached through economic growth alone, and that clean air, safe drinking water and a healthy ecosystem counted equally. The Clean Sri Lanka programme, she said, is not merely a campaign to clear waste from streets but a broader national transformation aimed at changing public attitudes, with schoolchildren, public servants, university students and the general public taking part.
Not reported
Neither filing gives a budget or site for the 2027 animal hospital, a start date for the mobile veterinary service, a timeline for the 1,600 Environment Ministry recruits, or the current shortfall in veterinary surgeons that the Prime Minister referred to. Neither names the award recipients at the ceremony.
Sources: Daily Mirror, NewsFirst.
