- Sri Lankans head to the polls on Sept. 21 for the country’s first presidential election since public protests forced the island nation’s last elected leader from office in 2022.
- But more than 450 of the 13,100 polling stations nationwide are located close to elephant habitat, including areas with a history of human-elephant conflict.
- Sri Lanka has one of the highest incidences of human-elephant conflict in the world, as a growing human population encroaches into dwindling elephant habitat.
- The election commission is working with wildlife authorities to ensure voters can go out and cast their ballot in safety, including encouraging early-morning turnout when the animals aren’t actively roaming about yet.
COLOMBO — Over the past two years, Daham Piyasena has lived through momentous times: the worst economic crisis in Sri Lanka’s history, which led to unprecedented public protests that forced the resignation of the island nation’s president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
On Sept. 21 this year, Piyasena, a 61-year-old farmer, will be among more than 17 million Sri Lankans looking to write a new chapter in the country’s history when they go to the polls for the first presidential election since 2019.
But for Piyasena and his wife, Chandrika, there’s no guarantee of a trouble-free voting day. That’s because their village in the northwestern district of Puttalam is one of many red-alert areas — designated as such because of the high incidence of human-elephant conflict.
“Elections or no elections, people are always watchful,” Piyasena tells Mongabay. “Authorities have tried various solutions in the past five decades including electric fences, but the situation has not improved.”
The couple are resigned to the near inevitability of an elephant encounter on the day — or on any other day — and take a practical view: It’s best to vote in the early hours, they say, and not wait until afternoon, when elephants are more likely to be lumbering about and therefore more likely to cross paths with humans.
“If a lot of people leave their homes for polling, that’s bonanza time for elephants,” adds Chandrika, 55, of the likelihood of elephant herds raiding their crops undisturbed.
Sri Lanka is renowned for its large population of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus maximus), but with their habitat dwindling and the island’s human population growing, the two species are increasingly coming into conflict with one another. The country has one of the highest incidences of human-elephant conflict, which claim an increasing number of lives on both sides every year. Elephant deaths in 2022 hit an all-time high of 433, while human fatalities from these conflicts was also a record 145.
Making voters safe
The logistics of the upcoming election highlight the issue. More than 450 of the around 13,100 polling stations nationwide are located close to elephant habitat, including areas with a history of human-elephant conflict. That’s spurred an unusual inter-agency collaboration between the electoral commission and the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) to ensure people can cast their ballots in safety.
“We want voters to be able to go out and vote,” says Saman Sri Rathnayake, Sri Lanka’s commissioner general of elections. “We advise them to go early and cast their vote. Wild elephants can be a concern, and we have identified areas where the threat of wild elephants might keep voters away from polling. We have sought support from the Department of Wildlife Conservation and their units in specific areas to pay special attention on election day.”
According to Rathnayake, the electoral commission has identified polling stations that may be vulnerable to elephant attacks or located in areas where the presence of elephants could dissuade people from turning up to vote. Local electoral officials in those areas have been instructed to work closely with the wildlife department — an arrangement that Rathnayake says is “regular practice” for his office during every election.
“What’s more, wildlife officers will be on standby if there is a need to drive away elephants to help people to cast their vote,” says a wildlife official based in the Puttalam electoral district. “Usually firecrackers do the trick.”
A recently concluded elephant survey put Sri Lanka’s minimum elephant population at 5,879. Between 2011 and 2024, a total of 4,262 elephant deaths were reported, many of them due to human-elephant conflict. Various conservation approaches adopted over the past 50 years have largely failed reduce the rate of conflict, despite Sri Lanka’s importance to Asian elephant conservation.
For Rathnayake, it’s not just elephants that authorities have to look out for on polling day. In previous elections, some of the public buildings designated as polling stations turned out to house hornet or wasp nests. The surge in human activity on voting day incited attacks by these stinging insects.
“All these considerations have to be made when selecting buildings for polling,” Rathnayake says, adding, “Some areas have unique issues.”
Authorities are also working closely with the national disaster agency to mitigate threats from landslides, floods and torrential rains, the commissioner says.
Banner image: Sri Lanka has translocated elephants as a response to human-elephant conflict. Image courtesy of Ape Pituwa/Department of Wildlife Conservation.
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