Saving Elephants by Helping People
Saving Elephants by Helping People
Elephants have played a significant part in Sri Lanka’s history, culture, and religion for thousands of years. Largely found in protected reserves and national parks, their ancient migration routes between these areas have become filled with villages and roads as human populations have grown. Human – elephant conflict (HEC) is the result when elephants are forced to roam in search of sustenance and new territories and clash with villagers, resulting in injury and even loss of life for both the elephants and the people they encounter.
A true champion for both elephants and the communities that live beside them is Ravi Corea, who has dedicated the past thirty years of his career to finding solutions to HEC to create a sustainable future for both the people and wildlife of Sri Lanka.
A native Sri Lankan, Ravi grew up with a fascination for nature and wildlife, watching birdlife, snakes, and turtles in a nearby marsh. However, in his teenage years, the marsh was overtaken by building development. He pinpoints this as a pivotal moment that inspired him into his career as a conservationist who would balance the needs of ecosystems with the needs of communities that live alongside them.
Ravi has lived in the USA for over thirty-five years, gaining a degree in Conservation Biology from New York’s Columbia University, and working at the Herpetology Department of the American Museum of Natural History as a Curatorial Assistant and Scientific Consultant. During this time, he founded the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society (SLWCS) in 1995 to find a new way to balance ecosystem protection for elephants and other species with sustainable economic development for rural communities.
Based in Wasgamuwa in the North Central Province, Ravi and his team have worked over the past twenty-five years alongside the communities that share their existence with elephants, making them part of the solution. In the early days of conservation, this was unheard of, as Ravi says, “most conservation efforts at the time completely overlooked this very important element, which was the communities who had the biggest impact on wildlife.”
In 2002, the SLWCS began to monitor the human and elephant interactions along one of Wasgamuwa’s ancient elephant corridors, supported by international volunteers. Two observation tree huts along the route were built for the researchers to be based whilst collecting data, as well as providing a lifeline for villagers walking through, as a place to seek shelter when aggressive bull elephants were present.
With growing human populations, by 2014, this route was heavily used by pedestrians, and the number of human elephant conflict situations was spiraling down; and solutions were needed urgently. The SLWCS learnings in this region inspired them to establish the world’s first EleFriendly Bus service, which drastically reduced human elephant conflict situations by 90%.
This is just one example of the forward-thinking and creative solutions the SLWCS has delivered in the region. Others include Project Orange Elephant, using elephants’ natural dislike of citrus fruits to build citrus groves as a trophic deterrent to protect farmers’ home gardens from being raided. During the pandemic, when the support from international volunteers stopped overnight, Ravi and his team created an E- Volunteer programme so conservation-minded travellers across the globe could still contribute time, expertise, and funds to support the SLWCS team on the ground.
Today, responsible travel creates a new vision of hope for Ravi and the work of the SLWCS, with more and more travellers asking deeper questions and engaging with the work of conservation programmes as part of their itineraries to understand Sri Lanka in more depth. Tourism is not without its challenges, though, including fake elephant sanctuaries where wild elephants end up shackled to draw tourist dollars. Ravi encourages travellers to do their research to avoid inadvertently supporting these, but is heartened that “fortunately, there is an increase in global awareness and recently several reputable international travel and tour companies have denounced certain activities such as elephant riding by not offering them in their itineraries”. (Editor’s note: The Fabulous Getaway has a strong code of conduct around wildlife-based activities).
Today, the worlds of science, conservation, community outreach, and responsible travel work hand in hand, thanks to the efforts of people like Ravi and his dedicated team at the SLWCS, creating a positive future for wildlife and people living alongside wild places in Sri Lanka.
Ravi Corea transforms childhood passion into lifelong mission, dedicating his career to protecting vulnerable ecosystems. With a degree in Conservation Biology from Columbia University and two decades at the American Museum of Natural History, he founded the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society in 1995. His pioneering community-based approach to human-elephant conflict resolution has earned UN recognition and created innovative solutions like the world’s first EleFriendly Bus Service, establishing SLWCS as a leader in sustainable conservation that benefits both wildlife and local communities.
Ravi Corea transforms childhood passion into lifelong mission, dedicating his career to protecting vulnerable ecosystems. With a degree in Conservation Biology from Columbia University and two decades at the American Museum of Natural History, he founded the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society in 1995. His pioneering community-based approach to human-elephant conflict resolution has earned UN recognition and created innovative solutions like the world’s first EleFriendly Bus Service, establishing SLWCS as a leader in sustainable conservation that benefits both wildlife and local communities.