The Dry Zone of Sri Lanka, the Mahaweli Development Scheme and the Elephants. (Part One)

The Dry Zone of Sri Lanka, the Mahaweli Development Scheme and the Elephants. (Part One)

            The MDS lacked any sort of environment study. The project committees responsible for the Mahaweli Master Plan have been disgustingly insensitive to the loss of our tropical forests and our grandest faunal asset, the elephant. The project Report has very craftily and cunningly avoided stating that the envisaged areas of settlement and cultivation are existing elephant habitats and had also purposely refrained from having any environmentalists, local or foreign, in the Mahaweli Project Committees. The disastrous result of this lapse, is the prevailing ' Elephant - Human - conflicts' in and around systems B,C,G and H and the large number of elephants killed from the inception of the MDS in 1969 up to now.

            The Mahaweli Ganga Irrgation and hydropower Project Report of 1968 for the development for the water resources, of the Mahaweli Ganga, prepared by the FAO, does not mention anywhere  in the Project report that the lands to be developed  under the Mahaweli scheme and released for cultivations and settlements are also inhabited by elephants and therefore due to this, the plans outlined lacked any provision to provide alternate areas where the elephants displaced by the Mahaweli clearings could be accommodated.

            Additionally, the project plan has totally ignored elephant and wildlife habitats declared by statute. For example, under phase, project 2, which is the Victoria - Minipe Extension, the proposal of the extension of the Minipe Yoda ela to the Amban Ganga is through the Wasgomuwa Strict Nature Reserve. (Subsequently in 1984, it was declared  an a National Park.) The Project Repot  has failed to take cognizance of this, although it is stated in the Project Report, that field work was carried out from March 1965 to May 1968.

            Further, there is no care and consideration exercised at all in the design and construction of massive, cement lined channels, which pass through elephant habitats to enable any elephants which fall accidentally in to these channels to get out. Over the years, several elephants, which had fallen and swept down by the swift current had drowned in the cement lined Right Bank Channel from the Mahaweli Ganga at Minipe to Ulhitiya Oya (Vianna Ela).

            Under the Project Area Description of the Project report, only details of Relief, Climate, Soils, Geology, Hydrogeology and the names of a few cultivated crops are mentioned but conspicuous in its absences in this description is the obvious and well known fact that these lands are also the traditional habitats of elephants.

            Reading through the Mahaweli Project report, one cannot help recalling about the clearing of forests and prairies of the U.S.A. in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, in order to establish cultivations and animal husbandry of the immigrant European populations, which finally resulted both in the destruction of vast extents of forest and several lakhs of Blson, which almost became extinct through extermination by shooting until the National Bison society was established in the U.S.A. to save it. Closer home, at Borneo, where forests are cleared, the elephants killed  and palm oil plantations are established. In the 19^th century, the British colonial Administration in Sri Lanka, also attempted to eradicate elephants by massive killing sprees maintained across the island.

            Up to the end of 1989, the clearings under the MDS, inclusive of the A.M.D.P, included four systems B,C,G and H and the areas developed for each system was follows,

            System                        Extent (ha)                                          (acves)

            B                                   24615                                                     60825

            C                                   41132                                                   101637

            G                                     6000                                                    14826

            H                                  24100                                                    59551

            Total                            95847                                                  2368839

             All these areas carried varying densities of elephant populations at the time the MDS clearings commenced. They also encompassed some of the colonization schemes established since 1933, which also had on- going elephant - human conflicts.

            Even when the MDS commenced in 1969, the rights of elephants were completely ignored and the illegal killing of elephants by people living in 'elephant - human conflict' areas was not taken seriously by any government.

            After the clearings of forest for the MDS and new settlements and cultivations were started, many of the displaced elephants kept coming back to their original habitats over and over again. The farmers and encroacher killed trespassing elephants as it was the surest way available to them though illegal, making sure that they don't get caught red handed and using cruel and devious ways, most of the time, for these killings. Even though elephant drives and translocations were done to contain and solve the ' elephant - human conflicts' , by the wildlife Department and the Accelerated Mahaweli Development Programme (AMDP) authorities, periodically elephants appeared on cleared areas as these areas also included their traditional migratory routes.

            However after sometime the establishment of permanent National parks etc for displaced elephants received serious consideration and ultimately, the AMDP from 1983 onwards declared four new National parks, and one new sanctuary and also upgraded the Wasgamuwa S.N.R. to a NP in 1984.

1983	Maduru oya National Park	ha	58550
1984	Flood Main National Park	ha	17350
1986	Somawathi Chaitya National Park	ha	37762
1987	Victoria - Randenigala - Rantambe National Park	ha	42088
1989	Kahalla - Pallekele Sanctuary	ha	21290
Total			177040

            The enactment of these long overdue solutions by the AMDP management at the time, has at least, enabled the elephants to survive a few more years and push back the date of their extinction, as they had the security of these parks and the single sanctuary for their existence and to a certain extent safeguard their lives from the unrestrained killings by the Mahaweli farmers and land grabbing encroachers.

            The declaration of new national parks and a sanctuary proved conchasirely the faulty planning of the Mahaweli Project by the FAO in that the reality of the project area being the habitat of elephants, had not been given due consideration, as one of the biggest problems encountered by the new settler farmers and administrators was the intrusion of elephants into settlements and cultivations and by the conservationists, of the vanishing elephant habitats and elephant causalities. Since the election of Mr. Maithripala Sirisena as President in 2015, a large number of new development schemes under Mahaweli Development are happening, all over the ancient Rajarata, such as the Yanoya project, Malvatu oya Project, Maduru oya right bank project, Moragahakanda Project, Kaluganga Project and Wemedilla Project, each of which carry substantial elephant populations. This causes, once again, the elephants problems to come to the attention of elephant conservationists and the people of Sri Lanka because there are no arrangements visible to provide alternate habitats for the elephants getting displaced due  to these schemes. In the interests of the displaced elephants, who need safe habitats  for their survival and the continued survival of the elephant population in Sri Lanka, it is imperative to separate sufficient areas for their survival by declaring new National parks and sanctuaries with corridors to link them  to each other and to other already demarcated national parks and prevent settlements and cultivations in these areas, so that elephants could move about without intruding into settlements and cultivations and avoid more ' elephant- human' conflicts.

            The elephants in the island now, are just about the last two or three thousands of those who are descended from those which managed to escape the captures during the Portuguese (1505 to 1656 AD), Dutch (1656 to 1769 AD) and British (1796 to 1948 AD) colonial periods, the killing sprees for the eradication of elephants by  the British administration in the Island in the 19^th century and the killings by farmers in the dry zone from 1948 up to now. Therefore, even the  solitary killings which occur frequently at various locations and the undetected deaths caused by festered and infected   injuries inflicted by inhuman criminal activities by humans, are pushing the elephants towards extinction as the point at which the annual birth rate in exceeded by the annual death rate is fast approaching or has been approached already. The time has now been reached that we cannot expect this tiny population of elephants in the while island to survive in to the future unless effective steps are taken immediately to safeguard and conserve every one of them. \

            Even though late, it is necessary to do an immediate study on the future of the elephants, who are now concentrated in the dry zone MDS project areas, because the Mahaweli Project Report of 1968 had totally ignored all issues concerning the widely distributed population of elephants within the ' Project Area". It is imperative to do this before proceeding further with more and move ' Mahaweli Developement Programmes which is now stretching like elastic and accelerating faster than even the Accelerated Mahaweli Development Programme of 1978 with timber extractions, forest clearings, encroachments, reservoir and channel constructions stretching in every direction of the ancient Rajarata and parts of Mayarata  to the whims and fancies of the dominant political faction of the North Central Province, working hectically and making hay while the sun shines.

            From the beginnings of the colonization schemes up to now, the whole business of giving land, cleared of forest, leveled, surveyed, promises made of water supplies, infrastructure and so forth, done at state expense, had the ulterior motive of the receipt of votes to the politicians who delivered the land. This exchange and understanding still persists and this is why politicians love the Mahaweli, for it is their Aladin's lamp.

            The political strife in the Island has been so vicious since 1948, (the year of Independence from British Colonial Rule), that anything and everything is sacrificed for the sake of gaining votes. Politicians think that even the votes of encroachers, who occupy state land reserved as dwellings or migratory routes of elephants, are also important to tip the scales in their favour and therefore no politician is prepared of lose these votes by taking the side of  elephants. Today, whenever elephants are subjected to casualties and harasments it is observed that politicians are deaf, blind and dumb to these incidents. Therefore, today, the fate of elephants is almost sealed by  the attitude and silence of politicians and it is clear that the conservation of elephants is a major political problem, as no politician is prepared to act on behalf of the elephants, although they are the people who possess the power and influence to do so.

            In Sri Lanka, Buddhism is the religion of the state, which means that the state should have concern, compassion and kindness to animals. If the state does not have this concern, compassion and kindness to wild elephants, how can it be said that Buddhism is the religion of the state? At present, in Sri Lanka, the treatment meted out to elephants in the wild, shows hypocrisy at its worst and the rights of elephants continue to be neglected and the government only looks after the interest to human beings from the womb to the grave for the sake of votes.

            The elephant is a priceless treasure and the greatest national economic resource of the dry zone of Sri Lanka. They possess an unequalled and unlimited potential to earn foreign exchange for the country as proved by the record incomes from the national parks at Minneriya, Giritale  and Kandulla and this in money that the elephants have earned for the country in spite of the ill treatment they are subjected to in these areas. Foreign tourists spend thousands of dollars, pounds, euros, yen etc.. to visit and watch, to photograph and study, and relax in the wild environments where elephants  gather. Sri Lanka in one of the best destinations in the world to see elephants in their numbers in natural surroundings. In short, the elephant in the magnet to attract the multitude of tourists from all over the world, which creates a great chance to build up inland tourism and the economy of the dry zone of Sri Lanka, similar to what skiing in the snowy Alps has down to Austria.

            When elephant habitats are parceled out as small individual allotments which end up as private property, they will never generate the income that elephants generate from these lands. In fact, the income earned by the elephants in capable of sustaining all these people, most of whom are forever surviving below the poverty line, living in theirs parceled out pieces of land. Even from the aspect of expenditure, elephant habitats cost the least to the government but when these elephant habitats are converted to human settlements and  cultivations, the expenditure incurred by the government runs in to millions of dollars, pounds etc.. which governments  have obtained and still obtain as loans to be paid back, with interest from foreign lending agencies.

Yasanthe De Silva

B.Sc. (Agriculture)