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President AKD’s environment reinvigoration project questioned by activists as elephants suffer

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The ambitious “Clean Sri Lanka” project of President Anura Kumara Dissanayaka with the tagline “Beautiful Island, Smiling People” launched on new year’s day this year has raised more questions than answers.

A presidential special task force comprising 18 members to oversee the implementation of the ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ initiative is an all-Sinhala committee and has ‘cleaned up’ minorities without any representation, critics say.

“The Clean sri Lanka project aims to address a cleaner physical environment and a nationwide moral commitment to enhance ethical principles,” its official website says.

It also identifies the enhancement of the three pillars of sustainability; Economic, Social, and Governance to address the overarching objectives of its strategic plan with specific stakeholder goals, actions, timelines, and outcomes.

In its one of the first action plans, the government has started focusing on environmental challenges, sustainability, and management. President AKD in its launch meeting emphasized reinvigorating a sustainable environment as a priority.

That has come in for harsh criticism now. An organization called ‘Husma’ (breath) has accused the government of detaining a herd of elephants evicted from the President’s home district of Anuradhapura are being held captive in a closed area starving them of food.

Husma is a popular NGO in Sri Lanka based in Kaduwela, Colombo, and does activism in the field of wildlife and environment protection,

They allege and claim that over 100 elephants were chased out from the wild from Anuradhapura alone and such action would be seen as a setback for the country in the eyes of the international community.

“If the attention of the international community is drawn, this will definitely be seen as a black mark without a doubt in the protection of the wildlife and environment in Sri Lanka and will also adversely affect the tourism potential of the country,” they have warned the Minister of Environment Dr. Dammika Patabendi.

Participating in the inauguration of the “Clean Sri Lanka” on 01 January at the Presidential Secretariat, President Anura Kumara Dissanayaka said reinvigorating the environment is to be considered as one of the priorities of the new government.

During his inaugural address, President AKD emphasized how environmental development has been linked to the project.

The President in his speech quoted from the data and the number of animal deaths resulting in death due to human-elephant conflicts and emphasized the need to avoid that and the loss of lives of the humans as well as elephants and the need to protect the environment and the need to avoid the conflict between humans and animals.

Responding to the President, ‘Husma’ sent a letter to him the next day (02 Jan) citing how the relocation of elephants from his district Anuradhapura had ended in failure.

In their letter, the NGO said that relocating or the chasing of elephants over 150 elephants including females and calves from Anuradhapura to avoid human-elephant conflict, in particular Sravasastipura, Thambuttegama, Vilachiya, Moragoda areas, has failed.

Also, according to Husma elephants are trapped for over a week at the agricultural farm belonging to the Animal Husbandry Development Board at Oyamaduva.

Chief of Husma Kelum Mahesh says the elephants have been caged in the sugarcane farm complex to stop them from roaming in the dark in search of food and their natural migration towards sugarcane plantations.

In his warning to the Minister, he pointed out ‘the danger of elephants dying due to starvation of being held in a small and controlled area’.

Apart from the warning in what could be considered an advisory note to the Minister, Kelum Mahesh has said it would be appropriate for the government to have arrangements for the elephants to migrate naturally from the sugarcane plantation complex and monitoring such migration apart from awarding compensation for the damage to property and crop.

He also accused the President’s representative and other higher officials in the area of not implementing the suggestion and that’s the reason the elephants are held captive and starving, in his explicit letter to Minister Dr. Dammika Patabendi.

“Even the villagers and the wildlife protection officers accept this proposal. But due to lack of interest from the Governor of the province, divisional secretaries, and other higher officials, the elephants are starving and have been caged in that area and suffering from immense mental stress”.

Husma has made a final appeal to the minister to pay attention to this serious issue and evolve a proper plan to ensure the elephants caged in the sugarcane complex are released enabling them to migrate to other places while compensating the public if damage happens during any such migration.

The President while launching the “Clean Sri Lanka” project questioned what happened to Sri Lanka today which has been appreciated by foreigners as a beautiful country.

President AKD speaking at an event in 2013 also stressed the need to resolve the human-elephant conflict as one of the examples to revitalize the environment in the country.

“In a country with one of the best environmental infrastructures, more than 182 persons were killed as a result of human-elephant conflict in 2013. Also in the same year, 484 elephants were killed by humans. Although being a beautiful country with one of the best environmental infrastructures we are noted as a country with very high elephants’ death rate and also loss of human life due to the conflict with them”.

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