Nations Trust Bank, in collaboration with the Wildlife & Nature Protection Society (WNPS), recently held their Monthly Lecture Series, focusing on the theme ‘Co-existing with Wild Elephants: A Comparison Between Botswana & Sri Lanka’.
Leading conservationists, Dr Sumith Pilapitiya, Former Director General of the Department of Wildlife Conservation in Sri Lanka and Dr. Tempe Adams, an Australian Conservation Ecologist addressed the critical issue of the human-elephant conflict in Botswana and Sri Lanka while highlighting the stark differences between the two countries.
Botswana, with a population of 2.7 million and approximately 130,000 elephants, experiences annual losses of 350-400 elephants and fewer than ten human casualties. In contrast, Sri Lanka, home to 22 million people and an estimated 5,879 elephants, saw 476 elephants and 169 people lose their lives to human-elephant conflict in 2023.
Dr. Pilapitiya, continues to support conservation efforts in Sri Lanka and acts as an advisor to the WNPS on the human-elephant conflict, while Dr. Adams has worked extensively in elephant conservation across Africa and is a member of the IUCN African Elephant Specialist Group.
The lecture series is part of Nations Trust Bank’s commitment to biodiversity conservation and education, a key component of the Bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy. The Bank aims to bridge the knowledge gap in biodiversity conservation through public awareness initiatives such as the WNPS Monthly Lecture Series, to build a better understanding of environmental issues in Sri Lanka.
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