WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

Public Outreach

Rukshan Jayewardene urges healthy relationships between communities and the environments they live in

Q: Has enough been done in Sri Lanka to create awareness about wildlife and environmental conservation among communities?

A: No – not enough has been done among rural communities. In recent years however, some NGOs have expanded their outreach programmes to rural communities especially among schoolchildren. But the state sector is typically tardy in creating awareness about wildlife and conservation in general.

Q: How important is it to create a healthy relationship between communities and the environment – particularly wildlife?

A: It is very important to create a sustainable and healthy relationship between any community and the environment that they live in. This is especially true of rural communities that live near national parks, sanctuaries, forest reserves and other protected areas rich in biodiversity. And this is because they are at the front line of the interface between wilderness and settlements.

“It is very important to create a sustainable and healthy relation- ship between any community and the environment that they live in

A combination of a lack of awareness and education and most of all, poverty, can drive these communities to have an extractive and unsustainable relationship with natural resources in their neighbourhoods. They also form a bridgehead for organised gangs of wildlife and timber extractors that are based in urban areas.

Forest communities should be provided with legitimate work opportunities in the wildlife sector. Knowledge on nonlethal methods of preventing wildlife depredation of agricultural fields should be disseminated.

For example, mitigating the human- elephant conflict that takes a toll on both humans and elephants will enable farmers to move from conflict to coexistence.

However, without commitment and cooperation on the part of several government departments, elephants face extirpation in mixed use landscapes.

Q: And how crucial is the role of corporates in raising awareness among communities?

A: Corporates can play an important role especially in organising outreach programmes that include workshops, and field and classroom sessions. Funding programmes should identify and utilise the correct resource persons in community outreach.

Q: What is the long-term impact of human behaviour remaining the same – and how can we change the mindset of future generations?

A: The long-term impact – or more appropriately, consequence – would be the local extinction of wild species, both plant and animal, from all landscapes outside of strictly protected lands such as national parks and sanctuaries. Including wildlife conservation in school curricula can change human behaviour in the future.