‘We are looking into the feasibility of giving farmers air rifles and rubber bullets’, said Gunadasa Samarasinghe who took over recently as Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture. ‘The idea is not to kill the animals but to chase them away. The Ministry of Wildlife is looking at the proposal at the moment. No decision has been taken yet’.
This follow-up action comes after a meeting at the president’s office earlier this month between the secretary to the president and secretaries to the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Wildlife and Forest Conservation.
Proposals to arm farmers with guns have been yo-yoing over the past months. The latest, about one month ago, had to be shelved amidst a storm of objections from environmentalists and the current one may not go unchallenged either. The risk of indiscriminate killings with guns is high.
According to Samarasinghe Sri Lanka loses 56 bn rupees every year and 120, 000 coconuts annually because of crop damage by wild animals.
The losses are being felt more acutely because of the current economic crisis which is gripping the country. ‘Food production has to be increased because we have no dollars to import food’, says Samarasinghe. ‘When crops are damaged it compromises food security’.
Among the proposals in the budget for 2023 which President Ranil Wickremesinghe presented to parliament last week, is an allocation of 150 million rupees to develop knowledge, technology, and infrastructure to reduce post-harvest losses and to set up an expert committee to obtain suggestions to prevent crop damage.
The main species of crop damaging animals that have been identified in Sri Lanka are wild boar, porcupines, monkeys, peacocks, and elephants.
Crop damage is an impediment to food production and has a knock-on effect on food security. Senior Professor in Crop Science in the Ruhuna University Aruna Kumara points out how more than 30 percent of the harvest is damaged by wild animal attacks before the harvest, and perishables such as fruit and vegetables are lost post-harvest.
Another issue Sri Lanka must worry about is food waste.
The national road map to reduce urban food waste in Sri Lanka was launched in August last year. Data released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and International Water Management Institute which were stakeholders in developing the roadmap, revealed the country generates 7000 tons of solid waste of which 65-66 percent by weight is perishable organic material. Some 693 tons of food waste are generated every day of which more than half is from the Colombo Municipal area. The aim of the roadmap is to halve food wastage in urban areas by 2030. ‘We have to look at how developed countries manage their food waste’, says Professor Aruna Kumara.
Rather than expand the area of cultivation, Sri Lanka needs short-and-medium term strategies to minimise crop damage by animals. Controlling these animal populations is one solution.
‘If humans can control their population with birth control why can’t these wild animal populations be controlled’, questions Professor Aruna Kumara.
Seasonal culling is an accepted method of conservation practiced in many countries in the world. In South Africa for example a tagging system with a QR code which is used to monitor the location of elephants makes it easy to keep a track of their numbers and a culling to take place as appropriate. Professor Aruna Kumara stresses the need to use this method uniformly with all animals. He admits it will be a controversial pill for Sri Lanka ‘s religious lobby to swallow.
In the case of some animals like peacocks their eggs will have to be physically removed by people to control their population. Peacocks have an affinity to dig up and eat legumes and cultivations of bitter gourd, snake gourd, papaya, and peanuts. They started laying eggs in areas of human habitation after they got wise that their eggs were being eaten by foxes, iguanas, and mongoose in the wild.
Some types of population control that are already in place can be of dual utility. The law allows wild boar, which is a source of protein, to be killed but the carcass can’t be transported nor the meat sold commercially. These limitations have been put in place to prevent over exploitation.
Sri Lanka has no land use policy at present and the fall-out from this is seen nowhere better than in land use for development. The encroachment into animal habitat has driven animals out of their homes to make forays into human settlements. Animals come out of the jungle when there is no food inside but maintaining their habitats with adequate food for them to feed on will contain them in their terrain and stop them from venturing into human populated areas. Professor Aruna Kumara takes the example of Hambantota where the construction of mega scale infrastructure including an airport, a port, and a sports stadium on about 20, 000 ha displaced animals and led them into farming areas where crops were destroyed.
The regulation of land use and ensuring animals have enough to eat in their habitat have become the need of the hour.
Among the containment measures that can be taken is to plant indigenous trees such as mango, val del, and jak fruit in the buffer zone in protected areas which will provide animals the food they require without having to stray. ‘Trees like these will ensure birds like bats stay inside the jungle and don’t come out’, says Professor Aruna Kumara. Foreign tree species like eucalyptus that have been planted in the buffer zone have little benefit.
Environmentalists have been warning of an impending human animal conflict for months. One of the country’s most intractable human animal conflicts is the human elephant conflict where both man and animal have lost life. This year so far, 104 people and 320 elephants have died.
Professor Aruna Kumara highlights some of the successes among the practical methods he used to keep elephants at bay. In a sandalwood plantation in Mahawa, Kurunagala and a teak plantation in Puttalam, Professor Aruna Kumara dug a 10-foot deep trench in front of the electric fence around the plantation and found that it was a deterrent for elephants. ‘It was difficult for them to get through except when it rained when there was a risk,’ he explains. He found ringing the electric fence with citrus fruit trees to be effective because the odour kept elephants away. ‘It takes about two years for the trees to grow to a height of about three to four feet and the fence to establish itself. One this has happened elephants don’t generally get through’.
A light repel system which was trialed in a 100-acre area in Kurunagala did not meet expectations. ‘We used different coloured lights that lit up sporadically. It worked at the beginning and kept the elephants away, but they got used to it eventually. The fence was powered after 6 p.m but they broke in when it was inactive during the day. Proper maintenance of the electric fence was crucial, but this was done poorly’.
