Abstract:
Among the issues in Sri Lanka today, the human-elephant conflict is a major problem
that affects on the environmental, social, economic and agricultural sectors. Howeve, there
can not be identified any sustainable procedure to minimize this conflict so far. Also,
around 120 elephants and 60 humans are losing their lives annually due to the human-elephant-conflict in Sri Lanka. Udawalawe park covering 30821 hectares is a habitat for
350 to 400 elephants. The main aim is to examine how the rapid spread of Lantana plant
minimizes the food habitats of elephants and to what extent it maximizes the human-elephant conflict. Lantana plant has covered for more than 10000 hectare upto now.
Specially, the Lantana plant mostly has occupied over grass lands. Hadagirigoda,
Aluthwewa, Galpaya G.N.divisions were selected for this study and 80 families were
selected randomly for questionnaire survey.
In this study, 83% of the people agreed that the main reason for the elephant invasion
of villages is the shortage of food. Also the study revealed that the shortage of food for
elephants have occured due to the spread of Lantana plant in the area. Therefore, identified
that the proper removal of Lantana will lead to protect food habitats of elephants and
thereby could minimize the human-elephant conflict in the area.
