By Nethmi Dissanayake
Elephants hold a unique cultural and symbolic importance in our country. We are fortunate that our country is home to such majestic creatures. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reports that “the Sri Lankan subspecies is the largest and also the darkest of the Asian elephants, the herd size in Sri Lanka ranges from 12-20 individuals or more. It is led by the oldest female”. This is a great example for matriarchy, which makes us raise the question: “Are elephants more evolved than humans?”
Elephants not only benefit our economy because national parks and elephant orphanages are a “must visit” on tourists’ lists, but they also play a significant part in religious events as well.
Unfortunately, these earthly manifestations of qualities such as strength, power, wisdom, and loyalty are facing many problems. Studies on ResearchGate describe the major threats that elephants in Sri Lanka face such as “habitat loss and fragmentation through conversions to settlements and permanent cultivation”. Ivory poaching is another problem that threatens their existence.
The human-elephant conflict (HEC) is a huge issue for Sri Lanka. Both farmers and elephants face problems because of each other. The HEC has led to farmers resorting to cruel methods to protect their crops. To both minimise the harm caused by elephants to farmers’ hard work, while also protecting elephants, the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society (SLWCS) has initiated a project called “Project Orange Elephant”.
Brunch spoke with SLWCS President Ravi Corea to learn more about this project.
“Project Orange Elephant (POE) is an innovative initiative conceptualised by SLWCS, based on research that elephants do not preferentially eat oranges. The initiative draws on elephants’ natural aversion to citrus to protect the homes and gardens of farmers from elephant attacks, while at the same time providing farmers with a sustainable supplementary income,” Corea elaborated. “The project is unique to Sri Lanka and came about as the result of fieldwork conducted by the SLWCS in the Wasgamuwa Region of the Central Province of Sri Lanka.”
Corea added: “Elephants do not preferentially eat oranges. To test this observation in 2006, a series of feeding trials were conducted with six captive Asian elephants in the National Zoological Gardens of Sri Lanka. The results were very encouraging: The elephants showed an obvious distaste for oranges and several other citrus varieties.”
Explaining more about the purpose and the motive behind this project, Corea shared: “POE is a crop diversification project to establish an economic and trophic buffer for farmers living in the rural countryside, for whom close encounters with elephants are commonplace during their day-to-day activities. Crop-raiding by elephants, and the harsh retaliatory measures subsequently taken by people whose livelihoods depend on their farms, feed a vicious negative cycle of violence and death. POE is helping to reduce this violence.
“Augmenting farmers’ crops with orange trees (Citrus sinensis) through Project Orange Elephant has proven to be a simple and effective method for mitigating human-elephant conflicts, and for creating an environment of co-existence in the Wasgamuwa Region of Sri Lanka,” added Corea.
He mentioned that this project was awarded the “Most Innovative Development Project” award in 2015 from the Global Development Network based in Washington DC. We should applaud one more thing, after this project was finished, the POE team did not just leave after taking some pictures and then abandon these farmers, never to return.
The team has checked up on the farmers in 2017, and a report by the SLWCS revealed: “Their trees looked stunning, they were practically overloaded with a bumper crop of Bibile sweet oranges,” and POE even planned to purchase their entire crop, and send them to markets in Kandy and Colombo.
POE has conducted this project in many villages, such as Radunnewa, Weheragalagama, Pussellayaya, Dunuvila, and Govirajapitiya.
Recently the NABU (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union) International Foundation for Nature, which has been partnered with the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society for a long period of time, has obtained a large German government grant for POE to expand it.
They first launched this project in 2012 in Radunnewa village. The project now receives lots of support from foreigners and locals. In recent times, societies and school clubs have formed partnerships with them here. The Red Cross Society of Royal College and the Rotaract Club of Kotelawala Defence University are two youth-led societies that have joined this initiative. We reached out to the two student leaders, Ashan Sandanayake and Yukthi Napagoda, who were the Chairperson and Secretary, respectively, of this project.
“In late 2017, as we were appointed as the office bearers of the Royal College Red Cross Society, we were given a new task on initiating a human-elephant conflict resolution project, and were given the responsibility of conducting the project. The rationale behind the initiative was to find a solution that would benefit both humans and elephants. Project Orange Elephant (by SLWCS) was ideal for fulfilling this requirement,” said Sandanayake and Napagoda.
They also added: “After a few group discussions with the SLWCS, the project was planned to be implemented in a grand manner where the RCRCS (Royal College Red Cross Society) executed a large-scale plant donation campaign, which concluded in late 2018, donating more than 2,000 plants to the farmers living near the elephant corridors in Wasgamuwa.”
After they finished their secondary education at Royal College, Sandanayake and Napagoda went on to join the Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) to pursue their studies, but they have not forgotten their duties towards Mother Nature.
“After finishing our school years, coming to KDU marked another beginning of a great journey. The Rotaract Club of Kotelawala Defence University (RAC KDU) had already joined hands with the SLWCS in conducting the same project. And we were fortunate enough to be back at work on the project, but this time as co-chairpersons. Despite the pandemic, all the plans were set to launch another great journey having the twin aims of raising awareness (PR [public relations]-based), and expanding the scale of the proposed concept,” added the two of them.
Sandanayake shared how they did not want to just donate plants this time but wanted to contribute to other needs as well, such as donating irrigation items.
Talking about the project which they conducted in school was a trip down memory lane for the two. With huge grins on their faces, they both went on to add: “Overall, we are very grateful for the immense support that we got from our fellow club members who were at Royal College and RAC KDU. It was evident that their commitment and dedication was vital throughout in developing and improving various other aspects of the project.
“Hence it reflects on the involvement and the passion of our youths on doing projects like this. We are more than thankful for the amazing support that we got from the SLWCS, Royal College, and the RAC KDU for constantly guiding us along the way.”
Sandanyake and Napagoda extended their thanks to the staff advisors of the KDU Rotaract Club, its President Dinu De Silva, Secretary Chamudy Soysa, and the committee members of the project.
Elaborating further on the youth involvement in this project, a SLWCS project report shared that: “From 10-18 December 2018, 59 high school students arrived from England representing 10 countries: Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, England, Germany, India, Kenya, South Africa, and the US. The children worked on two community projects in the village of Pussellayaya in Wasgamuwa.”
Humans have always taken advantage of the incredible strength and endurance of elephants. Elephants have been ridden onto battlefields and trained to carry and heave logs. This is not only applicable to Sri Lanka; this is the case in many countries, and if we want to save our remaining elephants, we need to unite and initiate more thoughtful and innovative projects like Project Orange Elephant, so that both humans and elephants don’t have to suffer and can live and grow together.
Photo © Apoorwa Nanayakkara
