It was encouraging to find out that the Department of Wildlife Conservation has made a decision to do away with translocating of elephants. Yet, there seems to be no definite plans as to how the current populations of elephants in Sri Lanka will be managed over the long term. According to reports it seems the only solution that is still advocated by the Department of Wildlife to address the intensifying human-elephant conflict island wide is to erect hundreds of kilometers of electric fencing. With the country on a development drive it becomes vitally important that we address issues such as human-elephant conflict and elephant conservation with a long term focus, goals and objectives in mind.

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The gardeners of Asia’s and Africa’s forests: An interview with Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz and Stephen Blake

It seems difficult to imagine elephants delicately tending a garden, but these pachyderms may well be the world’s weightiest horticulturalist. Elephants both in Asia and Africa eat abundant amounts of fruit when available; seeds pass through their guts, and after expelled—sometimes tens of miles down the trail—sprouts a new plant if conditions are right. This process is known by ecologists as ’seed dispersal’, and scientists have long studied the ‘gardening’ capacities of monkeys, birds, bats, and rodents. Recently, however, researchers have begun to document the seed dispersal capacity of the world’s largest land animal, the elephant, proving that this species may be among the world’s most important tropical gardeners.

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