Humans and Elephants – from Conflict to Cohabitation through awareness
The HEC subcommittee of the society, partnered by the Lanka Environment Fund, had a busy few months, raising awareness on HEC and mitigation strategies. The team worked with the Youth Wing to run 30 school programmes in the Hambanthota, Gal Oya and the Anuradhapura areas, educating school children on why HEC incidents take place and introducing them to potential mitigation strategies. The team also released 5 short documentaries on the WNPS YouTube channel focusing on the subject. 
Seasonal Fencing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFzIVx5WrNc
Maintaining Fences https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07_5lDUJfSc
Elephant Corridors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEq9azgGXEg
Linear Fences https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi-X291WHAE
Village fencing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-LUMO4xWwI
In conjunction with the school programme, a PR campaign was also run on social media in English, Sinhalese and Tamil, that provides a brief overview on how HEC issues came about, why current mitigation strategies don’t seem to be effective and also introduces a few alternatives. 
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid021nw6SPq69YstwZPeE3Q4UhGNDB2ir13Kkauja8ZKwuVmEHKF8qQa79VghsLEwsdAl&id=100064769346296&mibextid=Nif5oz
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0Mb4TLGFuXYpgj4gns9fwEdy9ARoVGiXmaqXY9Jx4ccETBrTmNGFPJNdBQzynjHRRl&id=459614580786718&mibextid=Nif5oz
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid06bK27TBsqEuyV9pPH9HXjc1MEYdJSmYCzamMW9hb4QANxA11TJ8Pe7KDYn6vqhAUl&id=459614580786718&mibextid=Nif5oz
Seasonal and village fencing, ongoing studies that are run by the Centre for Conservation and Research (CCR), and our own LRS, are discussed as potential mitigation strategies.
Seasonal fencing involves farmers putting up electric fences as they plant crops and taking the fences down as soon as they harvest. This strategy allows the farmer to protect their crop when needed while also allowing elephants to feed on the remnants once the harvesting is complete. This also opens opportunities for eco-tourism initiatives that could provide farmers with a supplementary income.
Village fencing is a mitigation strategy that is based on people/assets being fenced in as opposed to elephants being enclosed in a small area. This method of fencing ensure that people and their assets are protected while allowing elephants to roam freely through their range. Hopefully this will bring about a reduction in the loss of life of both people and elephants.
The Light Repel System (LRS) is a mitigation strategy that the HEC team of the WNPS have been working on for a couple of years. The system is currently being rolled out at 25-30 locations across the country and data is being gathered to ascertain its efficacy. Data has been collected for about 18-24 months and results to date seem promising. Keep an eye out for a white paper that the WNPS will publish soon.
We are optimistic that these new strategies will help reduce the number of deaths on both sides of the equation. Over the last few years over 100 people and over 400 elephants lose their lives annually due to the human-elephant conflict. When will we say this is too much?