Sri Lanka’s elephants are increasingly being forced to navigate a landscape shaped by expanding human settlements, agriculture, infrastructure and fragmented habitats. As traditional movement routes become disrupted and natural habitats shrink, encounters between people and elephants are becoming more frequent — with devastating consequences for both.
In 2025 alone, 397 elephants were reported dead, while communities across the country continue to bear the social and economic costs of conflict. The challenge before Sri Lanka is therefore not simply how to protect elephants, or how to protect people from elephants, but how we manage the landscapes we share with them.
With a new national approach to Human-Elephant Conflict under development and renewed attention on elephant corridors and habitat restoration, the question is both urgent and fundamental: Can we rethink conservation beyond protected areas and create landscapes where elephants and people can coexist?
At the August Nations Trust WNPS Monthly Lecture, conservationist Praveen Bhargav brings decades of field experience, policy engagement, legal advocacy and conservation practice from India to examine the choices that will shape the future of elephant conservation in a human-dominated landscape. A co-founder and Managing Trustee of Wildlife First, he has served on India’s National Board for Wildlife and is presently a member of the Inquiry Committee on Segur Elephant Corridor constituted by the Supreme Court of India.
The WNPS Monthly Lecture is supported by Nations Trust Bank and is free and open to all. This special edition, featuring Praveen Bhargav, is made possible through the generous support of Spa Ceylon.
