The Cabinet has decided not to implement several decisions taken during the previous government’s tenure regarding domesticated elephants, ruling that they were in violation of the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance, Environment Minister Dr. Dhammika Patabendi said on Wednesday.
Speaking after the Cabinet meeting, Dr. Patabendi said the rescinded decisions would be formally communicated to the Supreme Court, where a petition challenging them is currently being heard. The Court has been considering a writ application contesting the legality of the prior administration’s framework for granting and recognising captive-elephant licences.
The Minister said a new policy on domesticated elephants will now be formulated, and that a committee with the participation of all stakeholders will be appointed to draft it. He did not name the committee members or set a timeline for completion.
Sri Lanka’s captive-elephant regime has been one of the most legally contested areas of wildlife policy. The Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance, the country’s principal wildlife statute, restricts ownership and transfer of elephants, but a series of decisions and gazettes issued in recent years had loosened or reinterpreted those provisions to recognise certain captive holdings — actions that conservation groups and litigants challenged in court.
The decision lands the same week the Cabinet also approved Dr. Patabendi’s proposal to gazette a managed elephant reserve in Hambantota, framed by the Ministry as a wild-elephant conflict-mitigation mechanism distinct from the captive-elephant track.
Sri Lanka’s human-elephant conflict has driven 108 wild-elephant deaths so far in 2026, and the Court of Appeal has separately ordered the Department of Wildlife Conservation to implement electric-fence and conflict-management plans within a fixed deadline. Today’s revocation focuses specifically on the captive-elephant licensing track rather than wild-population management.
Source: NewsFirst.
