Habitat Enrichment for Starving Sri Lankan Elephants

Your Excellency President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Honerable Members of the Sri Lankan government. 

The present pace of habitat destruction in Sri Lanka is making it increasingly difficult for the Sri Lankan elephant to locate food. The elephants have no choice but to turn to garbage dumps and small scale subsistence farms to forage for food. The farmers in desperation kill elephants through electrocution and hidden explosives in food which is left out for the elephants. The fragmented patches of forest are no longer large enough to support the elephant population of Sri Lanka.  We call on the Sri Lankan government to enrich the remaining elephant habitat to minimize human elephant contact, by at a minimum taking the following steps:

1. Immediate stop to introduction of 20,000 cattle to national parks and the removal of cattle from remaining elephant habitat: http://www.colombopage.com/archive_13B/Nov22_1385100118CH.php http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=82921


2. Immediate stop to legal and illegal logging in all remaining elephant habitat:

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=7813

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=29284

1. Immediate stop to tourist development in all remaining habitat:

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=30378

1. Immediate stop to roads crossing elephant habitat:

 http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=72563

1. Increase the water sources available to wild elephants:

http://www.island.lk/2009/01/10/news22.html

1. Provide access to natural salt licks for elephants. If currently access is not possible, artificial salt licks need to be created:

http://www.island.lk/2008/11/16/features3.html

1. Plant more food sources for elephants in elephant habitat, especially crops such as mango, palmyra and jack trees. This will help reduce the temptation of elephants to raid farms. (Currently, most of the remaining forest patches are nothing but large zoos, which require semi-artificial feeding of elephants.):

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=18159

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=42034

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=28145

1. Removal from elephant habitat, of invasive and non-native trees which elephants cannot consume. Removed trees to be replaced by plants which elephants can consume:

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=22496

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=1335

1. Immediate stop to all kinds of legal and illegal crop growth and mining in elephant habitat:

http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=71131

1. Prohibition of dumping refuse in elephant habitat.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=239013192942289&set=pcb.239013326275609&type=1&theater

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGDDRrIGk2I

Sincerely

Citizens of Sri Lanka and Friend around the world