Issuance of 2,000 firearms to Civil Defence Force to protect against elephants

• CA issues notices returnable for 27 March 

By S.S. Selvanayagam

Court has issued notices returnable for 27 March on the Respondents in respect of a Writ application contesting the purported issuance of 2,000 firearms to be distributed to personnel of the Civil Defence Force (CDF) deployed/living in areas rife with Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC).

Bench comprised Justices Shiran Gooneratne and Arjuna Obeyasekere.

Wildlife and Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka cited Minister of Environment and Wildlife Resources, and Minister of Lands and Land Development, Secretary to the Ministry of Environment and Wildlife Resources, The Director General of Department of Wildlife Conservation, Conservator General of Forests, Senior DIG, Director General of the Civil Defence Force Rear Admiral Ananda Peiris, Defence Secretary Major General (Retd) G.D.H. Kamal Gunaratne and the Members of the Cabinet of Ministers as well as the Attorney General as Respondents.

Sanjeeva Jayawardena PC with Prasanthi Mahindaratne, Diluma de Alwis instructed by Ridmi Beneragama appeared for the Petitioner.

Petitioner states the impugned decision of issuance of firearms was taken purportedly to protect themselves against elephants and other wildlife, pursuant to an impugned Cabinet Memorandum.

Petitioner states the Minister of Environment and Wildlife Resources, who is mandated by law to protect and conserve wildlife has initiated knowingly or unknowingly a grave, violent and unlawful pogrom, which is diametrically contrary to the interests of conservation, and would in fact contribute towards the further destruction of the fauna, in particular the Sri Lankan Wild Elephant.

It further states that in fact, the completely unsubstantiated and inaccurate public statement made by the 1st Respondent the Minister of Environment and Wildlife Resources that Sri Lanka can only hold 3,000 elephants but there are 6,000 of them when in fact the Sri Lankan Wild Elephant is listed as an endangered species, reflects not only lack of knowledge on the part of the 1st Respondent of the subject matter, but leads to the clear inference that the ultimate objective behind the impugned Cabinet Memorandum is to cull the elephant population, which the 1st Respondent purportedly deems to be excessive, knowingly or unknowingly. It states the issuance of the firearms to CDF personnel as a solution to address the HEC constitutes as a serious matter of the over-militarisation of a Human Elephant Conflict.

It points out that the issuance of 2,000 weapons unfortunately constitutes a virtual carte blanche invitation to members of the CDF to use the guns either to kill or maim the elephants, in what is in their perception, the best way to prevent or resolve the problem.

It states quite apart from the physical distribution of weapons the underlying principle involved in the issuance of an overwhelming proportion of arms to even a legitimate force, it is a force in the nature of an auxiliary force, which obviously does not have adequate training, and therefore the restraint, of say, the principal armed forces, also disseminates a very dangerous message to also the villages or the people in general that there is a government or state-based endorsement of the legitimacy of killing elephants as a efficacious solution to the HEC. The creation of such a subverted consciousness even in the minds of the people can only lead to an irreversible disaster from the perspective of the protection of elephants as an endangered species of a country, it claims. It states the confronting elephants and shooting them with shot guns injures them, causing multiple painful suppurating wounds that do not heal and may finally cause their deaths after prolonged suffering. Elephants so injured become extremely aggressive towards all people they encounter.

As a result, this initiative is also likely to cause a significant increase in the number of people killed by elephants and therefore, rather than being a mitigatory action or a solution to HEC, giving out guns is likely to cause a severe escalation of the conflict, to the detriment of both people and elephants, it contends.