As an extension to the ‘Human-Elephant Peace’ Project the Hambantota International Port Group (HIPG) has engaged with the Udawalawe Elephant Transit Home to nurture and protect orphaned baby elephants, before they are released to the wild.
Jeevan Premasara, Senior General Manager HR & Admin of HIPG said, “We have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) to lend our support to the ‘Save Ali Pancha’ project under the themes ‘Creating Human Elephant Peace’ and ‘Elephant Biodiversity protection’ we established last year. This new responsibility to nurture orphaned baby elephants and prepare them to return to their natural habitat as well as fund related research areas, is a project driven by the WNPS in partnership with the Department of Wildlife Conservation and Udawalawe Elephant Transit Home. In its first phase we plan to provide support to 25 baby elephants.”
The Human Elephant Peace Fund was first established by HIPG, with a grant provided by China Merchants Foundation (CMF), the philanthropic arm of their parent company CMPort. The fund spearheaded long-term initiatives to bring about a sustainable resolution to resolve the human-elephant conflict, beginning with hanging electric fences, creating awareness, and placing road side warning signage in high-risk areas.
HIPG will provide over US$ 100,000 for ‘Save Ali Pancha,’ which is the 3rd project under the Human Elephant Peace Fund. Apart from providing for 25 calves homed at the Udawalawe Elephant Transit Home, with food and other necessities, the project will support research to understand the types of antibiotics that work well on baby elephants. They will also provide smart collars for 6 elephants to be released into the wilds soon. Also in the pipeline are several awareness programmes for village communities and experiments are being conducted on a “Light Repel System,” a new innovation to upgrade protection of villages.
“While development work is of utmost importance in Sri Lanka’s industrial sector to create a positive impact on the country’s GDP, it is also necessary to ensure that development work does not happen at the expense of our natural environment. Wildlife conservation is a necessity and in order to make our business goals and work lives successful, we must find ways to co-exist harmoniously with nature. That is why we are working with the District Secretariat and other government and non-government agencies to protect elephants and our surrounding communities,” says Johnson Liu, representative of the China Merchant Group and CEO of HIPG adding that the project is top priority under the company’s Environment Social Governance (ESG) framework.
Since 2019, HIPG has invested USD 210,000 on three projects, both via CMF funding and directly, to help resolve the human elephant conflict.