In the distance, across the waters of the Kala Wewa, a mist shrouded Ritigala jutted against the sky line. Ritigala never fails to arouse an air of mystique and intrigue about it. It is an island eco-system surrounded by a sea of drier vegetation. The presence of some species of plants found nowhere else in the world but on its small range of hills, testifies to its uniqueness. There may well even be small species of animals on it, yet to be discovered by science. Our search today had brought us to the shores of the gigantic Kala Wewa, a man made lake, in search of something more visible. Elephants.
Chanaka Ellawala, my host, carefully guided his four wheel drive Toyota Land Cruiser around jeep tracks on the margins of the lake. We were staying at the nearby Kaladiya Bungalow, recently restored to reflect the renaissance in wallawa style architecture fused with modern aesthetics and under stated style. Set within one hundred and forty acres of plantation, it is bordered by village farmlands and elephant country. We had arrived on a Saturday afternoon in the last week of September, anticipating dry weather. But it was not to be. The North-east Monsoon seemed to have arrived early this year and the skies were ominously dark. Two days of rain had preceded us and Chanaka was worried that the elephant herds would now begin to disperse. The elephants which had gravitated from the dry scrublands around the Kala Wewa, would use the rain as a signal to head back to their usual feeding ground.
When the Ellwala family first began to farm the land under a lease from the Mahaveli Authority, they soon understood the realities faced by villagers with human elephant conflict. In the first year they lost almost all of their agricultural crops to raiding elephants. They commissioned a private study on the elephants with a former employee of the Department of Wildlife Conservation Department as a member of the study team. The study showed regular incursions to the farmlands from elephants in the surrounding scrub jungles. The study also showed that some of the crop raiders, gathering seasonally around the Kala Wewa, were groups of elephants that came from as far away as Rasvehera, famous for a sculpture of the Buddha, similar to the statue at Aukana. The Ellwalas soon realized that the only solution was to construct an expensive electric fence around their farm to keep out the elephants. The bananas and mangos and other crops nevertheless remained attractive to a host of birds and bats, a loss which was acceptable. A small lake they excavated also attracted wildlife, but not elephants who were fenced out. Before long the village framers followed suit and constructed a long electric fence, a few kilometers long to separate their farmlands from the reservation, beyond which was elephant country. The village electric fence had been a collaborative effort with the villages providing the concrete posts and the DWLC providing the wiring and other technology.
Chanaka Ellawala, my host, carefully guided his four wheel drive Toyota Land Cruiser around jeep tracks on the margins of the lake. We were staying at the nearby Kaladiya Bungalow, recently restored to reflect the renaissance in wallawa style architecture fused with modern aesthetics and under stated style. Set within one hundred and forty acres of plantation, it is bordered by village farmlands and elephant country. We had arrived on a Saturday afternoon in the last week of September, anticipating dry weather. But it was not to be. The North-east Monsoon seemed to have arrived early this year and the skies were ominously dark. Two days of rain had preceded us and Chanaka was worried that the elephant herds would now begin to disperse. The elephants which had gravitated from the dry scrublands around the Kala Wewa, would use the rain as a signal to head back to their usual feeding ground.
When the Ellwala family first began to farm the land under a lease from the Mahaveli Authority, they soon understood the realities faced by villagers with human elephant conflict. In the first year they lost almost all of their agricultural crops to raiding elephants. They commissioned a private study on the elephants with a former employee of the Department of Wildlife Conservation Department as a member of the study team. The study showed regular incursions to the farmlands from elephants in the surrounding scrub jungles. The study also showed that some of the crop raiders, gathering seasonally around the Kala Wewa, were groups of elephants that came from as far away as Rasvehera, famous for a sculpture of the Buddha, similar to the statue at Aukana. The Ellwalas soon realized that the only solution was to construct an expensive electric fence around their farm to keep out the elephants. The bananas and mangos and other crops nevertheless remained attractive to a host of birds and bats, a loss which was acceptable. A small lake they excavated also attracted wildlife, but not elephants who were fenced out. Before long the village framers followed suit and constructed a long electric fence, a few kilometers long to separate their farmlands from the reservation, beyond which was elephant country. The village electric fence had been a collaborative effort with the villages providing the concrete posts and the DWLC providing the wiring and other technology.
