An Overview Of Our Solution
Sri Lanka is a biodiversity hotspot of the world and its globally significant biodiversity values are currently threatened by unregulated exploitation of natural resources. 78% of the population is rural and 80% of the natural forest cover is lost due to development. Currently 34 mammal species, 61 bird species and 627 higher plant species are declared as threatened. The primary rural industry is agriculture and 40% of the rural poor people are small-scale farmers hampered by neglect, poor economies and pre and post-harvest losses (as high as 40-50%). In addition human-elephant conflict has a huge impact on their livelihoods. As a result 65% of villagers live in chronic debt. The challenge is develop innovative land use strategies for biodiversity conservation and to mitigate human elephant conflicts.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Asia
General Information
Organization type
Sin fines de lucro/No Gubernamental
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Freshwater
Grasslands
Population impacted
30,544
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
3,728 hectares
Production quantity
18,640,000 kilos
People employed
30,544
Solution
Describe your solution
The SLWCS project tested several innovative concepts at the village level that engage communities to construct and maintain solar powered electric fences, adapt alternative agriculture practices, and practice sustainable land use to mitigate HEC to alleviate poverty.
The Saving Elephant by Helping People pioneered the use of electric fences to keep elephants ‘OUT’ of human settlements rather than ‘IN’ protected areas. This concept takes into consideration that elephants cause substantial economic loss to farmers by raiding their crops and harvested food. It uses a management model that fully integrates community participation to HEC resolution.
Project Orange Elephant is a crop diversification project that provides an economic and physical buffer, for farmers who suffer frequent crop damage. Feeding trials showed that elephants do not like citrus fruits so it is a perfect buffer crop. By growing a barrier of citrus trees around their rice and vegetable crops, rural farmers are creating an effective elephant deterrent and a sustainable income while keeping their families and wild elephants safe. POE received a Most Innovative Development Project Award from the Global Development Network in June 2015.
The Bee Project is introducing bee keeping to farmers to provide a supplementary income and potential elephant deterrent. The keeping of bees will also increase their harvests since the bees will provide the added benefit of pollinating their crops.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
The activities consisted of reducing the incredible damage elephants caused to rural agriculture. These activities had a significant effect in changing the socio-economic dynamics in the villages achieving the following:
70% of the land was left uncultivated due to elephants frequently raiding the fields. Since the measures were implemented elephant raids have significantly reduced by 100% enabling villagers to cultivate all their fields. They can cultivate seasonal and annual crops, which they could not do before. Alleviated poverty by increasing the average annual income by 212%. Approximately 7 hours per day per farmer that was spend protecting crops has been saved. Villagers can sleep at night now or use that time for other activities. Villagers used to spend on average $100 per annum to purchase kerosene oil, firecrackers, flashlight batteries and bulbs to protect crops in the night. Since the project was implemented, the average monthly cost per household to maintain the electric fence is $10 per year saving $90 per household. The environmental awareness of some communities has increased by 47%. In several villages, 100% claim their wellbeing and safety has improved since the electric fences were erected. Feedback from villagers shows their mobility, especially after nightfall, has increased due to the security from the fences. The social life of villagers has vastly improved, increasing their quality of life. Reduced stress due to the lower risks of elephant attacks. Children do not have to miss school because of elephants and potential damage or deaths in the village.
The cultivation of citrus and beekeeping encourages farmers to diversify to create supplementary income streams and provide habitats for wildlife. Due its success, the Department of Wildlife Conservation and provincial governments have adapted and applying the SLWCS measures wherever HEC has become an intense problem in Sr Lanka.
External connections
The concepts of the SEHP Project has been adapted practically by all state and non-state organizations addressing HEC island-wide in Sri Lanka today. We’ve had organizations from India and even Malaysia visit our projects and subsequently adapt our concepts to their HEC mitigation efforts.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
Sri Lanka with a population of 21 million is one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world. Its globally significant biodiversity is under threat from deforestation, land degradation, and unregulated exploitation of natural resources. 78% of the population is rural. 80% of the natural forest cover is lost due to development. 34 mammal species, 61 bird species and 627 higher plant species are threatened. Human elephant conflict has the biggest impact on rural livelihoods. 65% of villagers live in chronic debt. 90% of villagers harvest resources in protected areas. 51% of villagers set fire to forests to cultivate Chena. Rural farming communities have no impact at the policymaking level. Gender inequality exists in the communities.
Describe the context in which you are operating
The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is one of the most endangered mega-herbivores in the world. Over the last four decades the Asian elephant population has declined precipitously, and one of the biggest threats to its survival is conflict with humans over crop raiding. Human-elephant conflict (HEC) is one of the biggest environmental and socio-economic crises of rural Sri Lanka. Annually elephants cause over ~US$10 million worth of crop and property damage to rural farmers. It is a substantial cost to bear for a population where nearly seventy percent of people live in poverty so in retaliation farmers kill elephants. Every year on average 225 elephants are killed because of this conflict and elephants kill about 60-80 people every year as well. Most of these farmers are killed in their own villages, backyards and fields. HEC is pretty intense in Sri Lanka and is escalating practically every year due to human settlements encroaching further and further into elephant habitat. Aaccording to the Department of Wildlife Conservation within the period 2005 - 2014 alone, 2,105 were killed and 691 people died in elephant related deaths in rural Sri Lanka.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
The resolution of HEC has made farmers more supportive of elephant conservation and has made it possible for humans and elephants to co-exist. Agriculture is one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss and the Sri Lanka government’s ongoing efforts to increase agricultural production will have profound impacts on biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. The SEHP initiative promotes that for sustainable development, it requires that biodiversity conservation and agricultural production are reconciled. The various SEHP programs are introducing pioneering and innovative land use practices towards achieving this objective. Conservation measures applied for the conservation of the elephant will automatically benefit a wide range of ecosystems, habitats, species, people, cultures and traditions. The positive impacts of the project on biodiversity conservation are tremendous, when evaluated on the basis of these facts and realities.
Water
In the dry zone there is scarcity of water for 3 months of the year which is a major concern. The project encouraged farmers to set up rainwater harvesters and water storage ground tanks to collect and store water during the rains. These water holding reservoirs are dug to collect water during heavy rains. They are built at lowest point in the field with terracing so gravity could do the collecting. In the home garden the farmers use bottle and pitcher irrigation systems.
Food Security/Nutrition
Human-elephant conflict keeps the communities economically depressed and directly impacts on food security and nutrition. The project has increased agriculture production, improved food security and nutrition of the villages. Farmers now cultivate 100% of their land and harvest without losses to elephants. Integrating management of water through improved irrigation and storage combined with cultivating drought-resistant crops such as citrus contributes to increased food productivity.
Economic/Sustainable Development
The SLWCS strategy gives consideration to environmental protection, integrated or holistic development that is sustainable, poverty alleviation, social mobilization, decentralization, bottom-up planning, mainstreaming gender, and basically sustaining more with community resources. Promotes community development and sustainable economic development to achieve conservation objectives. Increasing agriculture productivity and income of villagers ensures the sustainability of the project.
Climate
The project has raised the awareness of farmers to the impacts of climate change and that they have to deal with the consequences of climate change and need to play an important role in adaptation measures. Project participants are increasing the green cover through home garden development, citrus cultivation, water conservation, adapting local agricultural management practices for longer or shorter growing seasons, and use of alternative or drought tolerant crops, such as citrus.
Sustainability
The project needs initial grant funds similar to start up funds but once the project is well established the income generated is sufficient to sustain and scale up the project. The mitigation of HEC ensures farmers of a full harvest of their crops which brings in a high income. The cultivation of citrus provides the farmers with a product that needs to minimum investment. Oranges and limes have a high market demand and provide farmers with a sustainable income that is not susceptible to elephant raiding. The honey bees also provide the farmers with sustainable income plus increases agriculture production through increased pollination. The project once it’s established can operate purely on market-based revenue.
Return on investment
The cost has been ~$300K over 18 years. The return on investment is substantial but to estimate that return in purely monetary term is impossible. This is mainly because of the beneficial environmental impacts of the project. For example since the project was initiated there have been no incidents of killing elephants at the project site. While the economic damage caused to crops and property can be valued it is difficult to put a value on elephants or other wildlife that has benefitted from the project. When the impacts on biodiversity conservation, ecological systems, elephants and other wildlife saved are taken into account it is difficult to put a monetary value for the return on investment.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
The project has three main components: electric fences, citrus cultivation and bee keeping. All three can be adapted independently. The electric fencing and citrus cultivation has been adapted by the Department of Wildlife Conservation and the Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka and by Indian & Malaysian NGOs. The bee project is in partnership with the Elephants & Bees Project based in Kenya where it has been successfully implemented. The project has being accepted by government institutions as a proven and effective program to address HEC, poverty, land use, livelihoods, biodiversity, and elephant conservation. Through these national partnerships, the project is helping to shape policy that will have far reaching effects and long term impacts on the environment. At the regional level, the Society has partnerships with regional and provincial government bodies to implement projects to address HEC, sustainable land use and livelihood development.