Landscape Based Mitigation Design for Addressing the Human Elephant Conflict in Katupotha Area in Puttalam District

Abstract

The connection between Human elephant conflict (HEC) is quite old in Sri Lanka. Elephants and people
have some similar ecological needs therefore, conflict between the two species is unavoidable when they
coexist in the same area. Katupotha is one of the villages that has HEC in Sri Lanka belonging to the
Puttalam district and located 29.2 and 4 kilometers away from the Anamaduwa and Pallama respectively.
Mainly, elephants enter the village through a place in Rathambala stream where there is less depth and
width. According to the villagers, elephants are coming there in every year during the month of August,
when the rain is very low. Therefore, the landscape solution was designed mainly to fulfill the elephants’
water and food requirements. To avoid the entering of elephants to the village, the landscape of the
Rathambala oya area was changed by creating water features, fruiting areas, and bio fences.