Elephant and Wildlife Conservation in Sri Lanka

The conservation project was amazing and a great opportunity that I will remember for the rest of my life. I really enjoyed being able to understand the human-elephant conflict of Sri Lanka and the measures this organization have put in place to reduce it. I have really enjoyed all the activities I got to experience while being here, especially visiting and interviewing farmers as well as visiting the National Park and seeing the beautiful elephants.

Being able to work has been a rewarding experience. I knew I wanted to put my time and energy into a project that is making a genuine effort to ma The slogan is “saving elephants by helping people” and they really live up to that. Some of our daily activities included helping the local community plant orange trees, and checking the quality of the bee hives. These are good ideas for deterrents but not a long lasting solution. The Orange trees take 2- 3 years to fully mature and the bees are not working as well as it did for other wild elephant projects. But keep in mind any data good or bad will help with future ideas. We even helped to rebuild homes that were damaged by elephants. Other days we trekked through the forests and looking for elephant dung and prints for data. Nothing compares to the afternoons in the tree hut. Being able to witness elephants in their natural habitat was beautiful. For future volunteers come with an open mind and open heart and soak up everything this beautiful country has to offer. I’m truly blessed to have had the opportunity to come here.

My experience was wonderful. I learned a lot about the conservation efforts of the organization. I was surprised at how much good work being done by them. They have really put so much into helping the community and the elephants to live in harmony. I would love to see this program grow to include the entire country of Sri Lanka. I enjoyed learning about how to identify certain native wildcats based on their paw prints with the pug mark research and to see how the eating habits of elephants is observed through dung analysis. It was always special to get to visit the home of one of the villagers or farmers, to see how they live and how they are trying to keep the elephants at bay to stay safe. They were always so kind, offering us tea and snacks after our work.