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CWA # 1641
Global Politics Explainer
Sri Lanka’s Human-Elephant Conflict: What, Where and Why

  Vani Vyshnavi Jupudi
31 March 2025

The Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) in Sri Lanka is a major conservation and socio-economic issue as expanding human settlements and agricultural frontiers increasingly overlap with traditional elephant habitats. About 370 elephants and 125 humans have been killed annually since 2019, as put forward by Thakshila D Gunawansa and other researchers (2023), due to conflict-related incidents.

How did it start and evolve in Sri Lanka?
The source of this conflict is the eviction of elephants from their normal environments to areas where they have to fight for their existence since they have to compete for food and water with people. Elephants, in the process of invoking panic, cause damage to property and agriculture and, in the worst case, kill people. In return, local people have been known to use aggressive methods that include shooting, poisoning, and even using explosive devices, which kill more elephants. These challenges are, however, worsened by the absence of good land use planning policies that have facilitated the encroachment of the habitat and blocking of important elephant corridors. About 14,800 HEC incidents were reported between 2015 and 2021, which indicates an increase in the rate of the crisis. The conflict is adverse to the rural economies, especially the agricultural sector, as frequent crop losses limit many farming societies to depreciation into deeper poverty, which in turn results in hostility towards wildlife.

Climate change-related environmental changes are adding to the problem. According to Prithiviraj Fernando, deforestation, infrastructure development, and prolonged droughts have reduced the availability of natural water sources, forcing the elephants to move into anthropomorphic landscapes. Besides these ecological shifts, previous mitigation measures have been ineffective. Elephants have shown behavioral changes that enable them to avoid conventional deterrents like electric fences, and thus, such efforts have proved to be futile. The social and economic effects of HEC are still growing, and many of them affect subsistence farmers. Although compensation programs have been put in place to mitigate their losses, Perera and Ruvini Abhayapala note that many of these schemes are underfunded, bureaucratic, and difficult to access. The interaction of ecological degradation, economic vulnerability, and governance gaps further emphasizes the need to re-examine current approaches to HEC.

Where is it happening within Sri Lanka?
The areas most affected are the North Central, Eastern and Northwestern provinces. The North Central Province has the highest rates of elephant deaths, including from retaliatory killings, and reports them consistently, as per Chase A. LaDue and other researchers. The Eastern Province has had increasing conflict incidents after infrastructure development and widespread deforestation. However, the Northwestern Province has seen a relatively low number of elephant encounters, which has been linked to altered migration routes due to habitat degradation. 

The frequency and intensity of HEC are also affected by seasonal variations. The dry season (May to September) drives elephants to go to water sources made available by man, and this increases the chances of encountering people. On the other hand, the wet season (October to March) provides ample water for the wild elephants, but this is when there is a lot of food around because it is farming activities.

What are the causes?
The main cause is habitat loss and degradation, including fragmentation, which are all human induced. Thakshila D Gunawansa put it out that the forest cover of Sri Lanka was almost 70 per cent in the past, but it reduced to 16 per cent in 2020. The change is mainly due to commercial agriculture (tea, rubber and sugarcane), permanent land use conversion from shifting cultivation and the rapid development of transportation and irrigation infrastructure. 

Second, the land use changes. As pointed out by Prithiviraj Fernando, cash crop plantations were responsible for large scale deforestation which in turn led to the fragmentation of elephant habitats and disruption of their migratory routes. Further research indicates that systematic culling programs were introduced by colonial authorities; more than 6,000 elephants were exterminated between 1829 and 1835. After independence, the Mahaweli Development Project was continued with this trend; hence, many parts of the North Central and Eastern regions were developed for settlement and agricultural use.

Third, elephants are still being targeted for retaliatory killings and cultural reasons though Sri Lanka is not a major hub for the international ivory trade. According to Sören Köpke and few other researchers, about 200 elephants are being killed every year with firearms, poison, and few other devices. Traditional medicine and spiritual practices also result in illegal killings, and it is believed that elephant parts like skin, bones, and tail hair have curative or ritual value. The black market, which continues to operate despite legal restrictions on the ivory trade, is aimed primarily at tusked males, who are only 7 percent of the Sri Lankan elephant population.

Fourth, displacement of the elephants by the rapidly increasing infrastructure development is another major factor that has restricted their movement in their normal pathways. Some of the projects include the Colombo-Kandy highway and the Southern Expressway that have compartmentalized important habitats and have increased the cases of elephant collisions with vehicles. One hundred and four score and four elephant deaths were reported from road accidents from 2015 to 2021 in the areas of Hambantota, Moneragala and Anuradhapura. This shows that the expansion of the human population and associated infrastructure development remain the greatest threat to the elephants in the study area. 

References
1.    Gunawansa, U. & Perera, H. (2023) - Greenery Change and Its Impact on Human-Elephant Conflict in Sri Lanka
2.    Prakash, S. & Wijeratne, P. (2020) - Human-Elephant Conflict in Sri Lanka: Patterns and Extent
3.    LaDue, C. & Farinelli, F. (2021) - The Influence of Habitat Changes on Elephant Mortality and Human-Elephant Conflict in Sri Lanka
4.    Ekanayaka, A., Campos-Arceiz, A., et al. (2011) - Patterns of Crop Raiding by Asian Elephants in Sri Lanka
5.    Perera, M. & Abhayapala, S. (2022) - Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC): A Contemporary Threat to Rural Communities in Sri Lanka
6.    Wijesekera, D. & Amarasinghe, R. (2021) - Modern Solutions for Human-Elephant Conflict in Sri Lanka
7.    Dharmarathne, K. & Fernando, W. (2020) - Project Orange Elephant: A Conflict-Specific Holistic Approach to HEC in Sri Lanka
8.    Fernando, P. et al. (2015) - Managing Elephants in Sri Lanka: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go
9.    Köpke, S., Withanachchi, S., Pathiranage, R., et al. (2021). Human–Elephant Conflict in Sri Lanka: A Critical Review of Causal Explanations. Sustainability.
10.    Perera, K. (2016). Human – Elephant Conflict and Conservation of Elephants in Sri Lanka.

About the author
Vani Vyshnavi Jupudi is an undergraduate student at the Department of International Studies, Political Science and History CHRIST (Deemed to be university) BGR campus.

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