COLOMBO: Decades after unsuccessful attempts to minimise the elephant-human conflict in Sri Lanka, authorities are trying out a bold experiment -- allowing both mammals to live together in harmony with the environment.

Some 50 to 60 people -- mostly chena (slash and burn) cultivators -- are killed annually by marauding elephants in search of food. Drives to shift herds to nature parks, away from human settlements, have not been very successful.

New research by Sri Lankan scientists have found that, rather than clashing with the large animals, humans can recruit them as partners in the protection and conservation of these animals generally considered their number one enemy.

Thousands of poor Sri Lankans venture into the jungle and grow cash crops on government land without permits -- often in areas which are stomping grounds for the elephants. The elephants see in the chenas an ideal food source. Although illegal, the government has over decades turned a blind eye to chena cultivations because of a shortage of employment.

In the experiment based on scientific data, the Department of Wildlife Conservation and scientists are embarking on a model project to ensure that elephants and cultivators live alongside each other, with the cultivators being the protectors of elephants.

Prithiviraj Fernando, senior researcher at the Centre for Conservation and Research, said that the most crucial factor in the recently introduced National Policy for the Conservation of Wild Elephants is finding a viable solution to the human-jumbo conflict.

Elephants and chena cultivation are inextricably linked, says this research scientist -- who studied the animals for his thesis and is studying their ecology. He believes the human-elephant friction and elephant management and conservation are complex issues.

He said the plan is to empower chena cultivators who are among the poorest of the poor in Sri Lanka with bank loans and marketing avenues -- two areas they struggle with. Bank loans are out of the question for these people as they don’t have collateral and don’t own the land they cultivate

The scheme will link cultivators to elephant conservation and make them feel that they are beneficiaries while protecting and conserving elephants and not handouts.

The model project follows the new elephant conservation policy launched last year in which representations were invited from the public. There are no exact figures of Sri Lanka’s elephant population but the number being spoken of by conservationists is around 4,000.

In views expressed over the policy, the EFL said it will encourage the conversion of forests to degraded chena land which provides more food for the elephant.—Dawn/The IPS News Service