Take Real Action
Sri Lanka already has the evidence to save its elephants — its own scientists tested what works. Three people can act on it right now. Each message below speaks to what's actually in their power to do. It takes thirty seconds to send one.
What happens next: Your email shows these decision makers that people are watching and expect them to follow the science on human-elephant conflict.
If an email doesn’t open automatically, please copy the address and message below into your email app:
president@presidentsoffice.lk
Dear President Dissanayake,
Sri Lanka's human-elephant conflict has defeated every government for decades. 2025 was the worst year on record, with 438 elephants and 158 people killed. Whoever changes its direction will be remembered for solving something nobody else could.
Four things your own government's scientists have already tested:
1. Elephant drives. Sri Lanka has run them for 65 years and none has permanently cleared an area of elephants. The last major drive left over 400 elephants in the area afterward, and drives tend to make elephants more aggressive rather than fewer in number.
2. Corridors. Elephants here don't migrate. They live and die within home ranges of 50-250 km². A corridor is how an elephant reaches the rest of its own territory without crossing a village. Clearing corridors rather than protecting them risks doing the opposite of what's intended.
3. Reserves. Fencing elephants into reserves runs into the same wall as drives. Sri Lanka's protected areas are already at full capacity, so herds fenced into one that's already full don't gain safety. They starve. Elephants are megaherbivores that need enormous amounts of forage every day, which is why your own government's figures put the cost of expanding a protected area's capacity by even one elephant at Rs 2.4 million a year. Scaled to the roughly 4,000 elephants currently living outside protected areas, that's not a program Sri Lanka can fund, and elephants would starve waiting for it regardless.
4. Translocation. Moving 'problem' elephants relocates the problem rather than solving it. Your own scientists have tracked 25 translocated elephants and found they try hard to get back to their home range. The ones that don't usually just start raiding crops in their new territory instead. A published study of 16 translocated bull elephants found two died in the park they were released into, and none of the rest stayed put. The holding-ground alternative hasn't fared better either. Sri Lanka's first was abandoned as a failure. At the current one, of three collared elephants, one died inside and one escaped and went straight back to where it was captured.
When the National Action Plan was partially funded in 2024, with community fencing around villages and farms rather than around elephants, and protected corridors between habitats, elephant deaths fell from 488 in 2023 to 386, the first drop in almost a decade. I'm asking you to look again at what your own scientists found, and back it in full this time.
[Your name]
If an email doesn’t open automatically, please copy the address and message below into your email app:
info@env.gov.lk
Dear Minister Patabendi,
You chair the parliamentary committee reviewing Sri Lanka's approach to human-elephant conflict, which makes you one of the few people who can actually change its direction, not just comment on it.
Four things worth keeping in view as that review continues:
1. Elephant drives. Sri Lanka has run them for 65 years, and DWC's own monitoring shows none has permanently cleared an area. After the last major drive at Walawe, over 400 elephants remained in the area, and drives tend to leave elephants more aggressive rather than fewer in number.
2. Corridors. Elephants here don't migrate. GPS tracking shows they live and die within home ranges of 50-250 km². A corridor is how an elephant reaches the rest of its own territory without crossing a village. Clearing corridors rather than protecting them risks doing the opposite of what's intended.
3. Reserves. Fencing elephants into reserves runs into the same wall as drives. Sri Lanka's protected areas are already at full carrying capacity, so herds fenced into one that's already full don't gain safety. They lose body condition and starve, which DWC's own tracking data has recorded happening. Elephants are megaherbivores, and an adult eats roughly 150kg of vegetation a day. Government estimates put the cost of raising a protected area's capacity by even one elephant at Rs 2.4 million a year. Scaled to the roughly 4,000 elephants currently living outside protected areas, that's not a policy Sri Lanka can afford, and elephants would starve waiting for it regardless.
4. Translocation. Moving 'problem' elephants relocates the problem rather than solving it. CCR's tracking of 25 translocated elephants found they have a strong attachment to their home range and try hard to get back to it. The ones that don't usually just start raiding crops wherever they end up instead. A published study of 16 translocated bull elephants found two died in the park they were released into, and none of the rest stayed put. The holding-ground alternative hasn't fared better either. Sri Lanka's first, at Lunugamvehera, was abandoned as a failure. At the current one in Horowpothana, of three collared elephants tracked, one died inside and one escaped and went straight back to where it was captured.
Sri Lanka's Elephant experts already scientifically tested the alternative: community fencing around villages and farms instead of around elephants, and protected connectivity between habitats. When the National Action Plan was partially funded in 2024, elephant deaths fell from 488 in 2023 to 386, the first drop in almost a decade. You're in a position to look at that evidence again and decide, with your committee, it's worth backing in full.
Thank you for taking this on.
[Your name]
If an email doesn’t open automatically, please copy the address and message below into your email app:
dg@dwc.gov.lk
Dear Mr. Marasinghe,
Congratulations on your appointment as Director General. You're now the person best placed to change the course of an issue no one has really solved in 70 years.
Four things your own department's data has already tested:
1. Elephant drives. DWC has run them for over 65 years, and not one has ever cleared an area of elephants for good. After the last major drive at Walawe (1.5 years, $1.6M), over 400 elephants remained in the drive area, and most of the animals actually causing conflict weren't even among those removed. What drives reliably do is make elephants more aggressive toward the people who tried to move them.
2. Corridors. Sri Lanka's elephants don't migrate long distances. GPS-collar data on nearly 200 elephants shows each one lives its whole life within a home range of 50-250 km², with strong fidelity to it. When a corridor is fenced or cleared, an elephant is cut off from part of its own territory and goes looking for the gap, usually straight through a village. Protecting and widening functional corridors, like the Minneriya-Kaudulla connection, keeps elephants moving through habitat instead of farmland.
3. Reserves. The same problem applies in reverse: fencing elephants into a reserve instead of out of farmland. Sri Lanka's protected areas are already at full carrying capacity, and they've been occupied by elephants for centuries, so herds fenced into one that's already full don't gain safety. They lose body condition and starve, and your department's own tracking has recorded this happening. Elephants are megaherbivores, and an adult eats roughly 150kg of vegetation a day. Government figures put the cost of raising a protected area's capacity by even one elephant at Rs 2.4 million a year, which isn't practical for the roughly 4,000 elephants currently living outside protected areas, and isn't something they'd survive waiting for either. The Hambantota Managed Elephant Reserve shows the same pattern already. Gazetted in 2021 to hold elephants displaced by development, land inside and around it has kept being cleared for cultivation, quarrying and solar power since.
4. Translocation. The same pattern shows up here too. Your department has tracked 25 translocated elephants and found they have a strong attachment to their home range and try hard to return to it. The ones that don't usually just start raiding crops in their new territory instead. A published study of 16 translocated bull elephants found two died in the park they were released into, and none of the rest stayed put. The holding-ground alternative hasn't fared better either. The first one, at Lunugamvehera, was abandoned as a failure. At the current one in Horowpothana, of three collared elephants tracked, one died inside and one escaped and went straight back to where it was captured. Moving a 'problem' elephant relocates it rather than solving anything, with a real risk of killing the animal in the process.
You have more discretion over how this is actually managed on the ground than almost anyone else in Sri Lanka. The scientists behind the 2020 National Action Plan already tested what works, and when it was partially funded in 2024, elephant deaths fell from 488 in 2023 to 386, the first drop in almost a decade. I'd ask you to look at their findings yourself and judge for your department whether drives, corridor-clearing, reserve-fencing and translocation are still the right tools, or whether it's time to back the approach the evidence already points to.
Thank you for taking this on.
[Your name]