Web of Life

Elephant conservationist Jayantha Jayewardene, will lead a group of Asian elephant conservationists on a study tour of Kenya next week. Thirteen elephant researchers and conservationists from Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal and Sri Lanka will make the tour.

The group will visit the research sites of well-known and long-term researchers like Iain Douglas Hamilton, Cynthia Moss, Joyce Poole, Max Graham and David Daballen. The group will visit Amboseli Laikipia and Samburu National Parks. They will also visit sites where attempts are being made to mitigate the increasing human-elephant conflicts in Kenya. It is also likely that they will also visit Noah Sitati’s research site in the Masai Mara.

Jayewardene, who is also a member of the Asian Elephant Specialists Group, said that at the major Symposium on Human Elephant Relationships and Conflicts held in Colombo in 2003, many papers were presented detailing the problems concerning elephant conservation and the mitigation of human-elephant conflicts, from both the African and Asian continents. The 230 participants discussed these problems in detail.

Arising from this Iain Douglas Hamilton invited a group of those working in Asia on elephant conservation to visit Kenya and learn from their experiences. The Biodiversity and Elephant Conservation Trust of which Jayantha Jayewardene is the Managing Trustee accepted this invitation and organised this tour. Many organisations have come forward to support the participants financially.

Jayewardene observed that elephant research and conservation measures in Africa were far ahead of that in Asia since the focus and funding so far has been on Africa, where there are more than 600,000 elephants in the wild in 32 countries. The Asian population is confined to thirteen countries, which hold forty to forty-five thousand wild elephants.

Jayewardene said the tour would be a tremendous experience and would give a great boost to the participant countries and to the conservation of the Asian elephant in its range states.

The participants are Hiten Kumar Baishya - India, G. Sivasubramaniam - India, Nurchalis Faldhi - Indonesia, Raymond Alfred - Malaysia, Kanchan Thapa - Nepal, B. Ramakrishnan - India, Zulfira Warta - Indonesia, Gem Tshering - Bhutan, Wahdi Azmi - Indonesia, Chay Noy Sisamphane - Laos, Tuy Sereivathana - Cambodia, Lalith Seneviratne - Sri Lanka and Jayantha Jayewardene - Sri Lanka.

(http://www.island.lk/2004/09/14/news18.html)