Villagers at Thenuwara in Puttalam District told a divisional council meeting that elephants are entering their settlement through a 2.5-kilometre gap between two reserves, and asked for a second electric fence and a patrol service. The minister chairing the meeting said both the fencing and a land programme for young families would be taken forward — in that order.
Prof. Chandana Abayarathna, Minister of Public Administration, Provincial Councils and Local Government and chairman of the Puttalam District Coordinating Committee, was speaking at the Thenuwara Divisional Council meeting on 26 October, the Daily Mirror reported in two filings on Wednesday morning.
What the villagers asked for
Village representatives set out a specific diagnosis rather than a general complaint. They said elephants enter the village because there is no adequate forest corridor connecting two reserves that sit about 2.5 kilometres apart, and because government-owned and forest conservation land inside the village has not been properly cleared.
Their three requests were:
- Strengthening the existing 3.5-kilometre electric fence running from the Weerakkodicholle reserve
- A new electric fence from the Sellakanda reserve
- A patrol service using guard huts that already exist
They said farmers were struggling to protect paddy and other crops, and that elephants reaching areas near schools and temples had created safety concerns.
What the minister offered
Abayarathna said 5,000 personnel who had served in the Civil Security Force have been attached to the Department of Wildlife Conservation, and that cab trucks and motorcycles had been provided to wildlife officers. He said President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had stressed building durable fences, with priority given to long-term benefit rather than cost.
He also said attention was being given to restoring tanks associated with forest areas, including construction of the Mahasen Tank, so that elephants have water inside the reserves and less reason to enter villages.
The land offer is conditional, and the order matters
On land, the minister said a programme would be formulated with the Divisional Secretary and Grama Niladhari after the electric fence protecting the village is strengthened. It would examine allocating suitable land bordering the village to newly married young families.
That sequencing is the substance of the announcement. Land bordering a village that elephants currently enter is not usable until the fence holds, so the offer is contingent on the first commitment being delivered. Abayarathna added that any allocation must safeguard wildlife habitats and the government’s target of raising forest cover to 30 per cent — a second constraint on how much land could be released.
The meeting also covered rural livelihoods, with the minister suggesting bitter gourd, mushrooms, passion fruit and big onions, along with poultry, goat rearing, dairy, floriculture and dressmaking, as ways to raise incomes on limited land without subsidies.
Karuwalagaswewa Pradeshiya Sabha Chairman Neil Navarathna, provincial council members and residents attended.
Context
Electrocution on unlawful fencing is among the leading recorded causes of elephant deaths in Sri Lanka — two young elephants died on an illegal fence at Aluthgama in Anuradhapura this week. Authorised fencing of the kind Thenuwara is asking for is the alternative that reduces both village incursions and the incentive for farmers to improvise lethal ones.
Not reported
Neither filing gives a cost, a budget line or a completion date for either fence, or says who would staff the patrol service. Neither says how many families would be eligible for land, how much land is available, or when the programme would begin.
Neither names the two reserves’ connecting corridor as a project under consideration, despite the villagers identifying its absence as the cause. Neither reports how many elephant incursions, crop losses, injuries or deaths Thenuwara has recorded, or gives a timeline for the Mahasen Tank.
The 5,000 Civil Security Force transfers are stated without a date, a deployment breakdown, or any indication how many are assigned to Puttalam District.
On sourcing: both filings are from the Daily Mirror and describe the same meeting; the second is a narrower account of the land question drawn from the first. They are counted here as one newsroom. No other verified newsroom had filed on the meeting when this was written.