The Human/Elephant Conflict
Sri Lankans and elephants are fighting for space. Their battles amount to a civil war across species leaving hundreds dead each year. P2P Rescue is working to develop solutions through the sale of products (elephant-dung paper, see our shop), supporting strategies for preserving migration paths, and educating Sri Lankans about the value of this magnificent creature.
How You Can Help
- Buy elephant-dung paper journals, stationery, and other products in our shop
- Donate to support our elephant-related programs
Background
Sri Lanka is home to about a tenth of the estimated global total of 40,000 Asian elephants in the wild. Elephants are not being killed in Sri Lanka for their tusks, as tuskers are rare; they are not being killed for meat, since no one eats elephant meat; they are not being killed for their hides, since there is no market for elephant hides in the leather industry.
Instead, elephants are being killed simply because they interfere with agriculture. Since 1950, it is likely that more than 4,000 elephants have been destroyed as a direct consequence of the conflict between man and elephant.
The elephant is running out of space in Sri Lanka. Most of the protected areas inhabited by elephants are small, less than 1000 sq. km in size (900 sq. miles). Nevertheless, elephants, especially the bulls, may range over hundreds of square kilometers in the course of a season. Their sheer size and gargantuan appetite mean that elephants and people cannot live together where agriculture is the dominant form of land use, unless the damage they cause to farmers can be compensated.
There are no easy solutions for resolving the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. Much will depend on how rural people perceive the worth of the elephant. To stop the wanton killing of elephants requires changing the perceptions of the farmers who suffer constant depredations from the animals. Many are now convinced that the only way elephants and human beings can exist successfully in the same environment is through finding ways to use the elephant as a sustainable economic resource.
Elephant dung may be that resource. It is a commodity that is freely available. On average, an adult elephant produces about 180-200 kg (500 lbs) of it per day. Moreover, it provides a way of converting a liability into an asset in conflict areas. New jobs and skills provide farmers with incentives to keep the elephant population strong.
Since an elephant’s diet is all vegetarian, the waste produced is basically raw cellulose. Thoroughly cleaned and processed, the cellulose is converted into a uniquely beautiful textured product, marketed by P2P Rescue as “PooPaper”. The papyrus-type paper can be formed into art and construction projects, notebooks, cards and assorted gift items where the only limitation is imagination.
Above: An employee working with Maximus in Sri Lanka to create elephant-dun paper stands next to a rack of drying sheets. Drying the paper has presented one of the most difficult problems in the process, as Sri Lanka often experiences heavy rains.
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