The State Minister of Wildlife Protection, Adoption of safety measures including the construction of electrical fences and trenches and reforestation and forest resource development, and the Director General of Wildlife has moved to dig trenches in Protected Areas citing it as a strategy to mitigate the Human Elephant conflict. Plans have been made to dig trenches covering a few hundred kilometers within reserves and sanctuaries and within and outside the two buffer zones, with a width of 15 feet on the top and with a width of more than 4 feet at the bottom; with an inclination. Digging of trenches has already commenced in some protected areas such as Udawalawe National Park, and Lunugamwehera National Park without any feasibility study or recommendations by the relevant experts. This decision will do more harm than good to wild elephants and other animals and is a ruse to exploit resources including soil, sand, gems, timber, and treasures in Protected Areas (PAs). Trenches as a barrier for elephants have not been effective, based not only on Sri Lanka’s experience but also on other elephant range states in the world.

The adverse effects of trenches include (1) deep trenches in wildlife landscapes impede wildlife movement, while smaller mammals can fall into the trenches, be severely injured, or die (2) impacting rainwater runoff, there could be unforeseen hydrological impacts including diversion of water which will have impacts to the local farmers and village communities (3) impact the cascaded tank systems and springs and (4) during the monsoon season either sides of the trench will cave in and get filled with soil, 5 destroy or divide the habitats of species. The requirement to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is twofold; (1) an EIA is required for any activity that could have such adverse impacts when such activity takes place within a mile (buffer zone) from the radius of a National Park and (2) the inland surface mining of cumulative areas exceeding 10 hectares. However, no such Environmental Impact Assessment has been conducted before the commencement of the said project, thus violating the provisions of the National Environmental Act as amended, Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance No. 02 of 1937 as amended, and National Environmental (Procedure for approval of projects) Regulations No. 1 of 1993 as amended.

In the guise of human-elephant conflict mitigation, trenches are being proposed to facilitate natural resource extraction from Protected Areas and for soil and sand smuggling. My clients are reliably informed that it appears that private parties have been and will continue to be granted permission to excavate trenches on the boundaries and within the 1-mile ‘buffer zone’ of PAs, at their own cost with permission to transport the excavated soil for sale. The aforementioned actions and/or omissions are inconsistent with and/or repugnant to the Directive Principles of State Policy and Fundamental Duties, particularly those enunciated in Articles 27(2)(a), 27(14), 28(c), 28 (e) and 28 (f) of the Constitution. According to Article 27(1), the Directive Principles of State Policy are the guiding principles for the legislature and executive in the enactment of laws and the governance of the country. They are like an instrument of instructions, which both the legislature and executive must respect and follow.

It is of great concern that the Department of Wildlife and other statutory Authorities in charge of biodiversity conservation are legitimizing the extraction of a natural resource i.e. soil in the organs of the government in which you are a component and/or an agent, are the guardians to whom the people have