Human-elephant conflict: Can insurance help affected communities? (Sri Lanka)
Human-elephant conflict: Can insurance help affected communities? (Sri
Lanka)
Ruwan Samaraweera, Nilwala Godamanna & Athula Senaratne, The Daily Mirror
January 12, 2021
See link
http://www.dailymirror.lk/economy/Human-elephant-conflict-Can-insurance-help-affected-communities/126-203606
for photo & charts.
In 2019, Sri Lanka recorded the highest reported elephant deaths and second
highest number of human deaths in the world, due to the human-elephant
conflict (HEC).
Each year, the reported number of crop losses, property damage and human
and elephant deaths continue to be considerably high. These numbers could
be even higher due to unreported cases.
Regardless of the immediate causes of individual incidents, the growing
competition between humans and elephants for living space is the main
underlying reason for many such incidents. This article looks at how
insurance could help affected communities.
Elephant Population in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is home to a significant population of Asian elephants. The most
recent survey conducted by the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) in
2011 reported a wild-elephant population of 5,879. The population comprised
of 1,107 calves, 4,650 grown-up elephants and 122 tuskers.
The highest number of elephants were reported from the Mahaweli region
(1,751), followed by the Eastern (1,573), North Western (1,189), Southern
(1,086), Northern (233) and Central (47) regions.
The dry zones of the island are the habitat for a majority of elephants.
Sri Lanka has allocated approximately 13 percent of the total land area as
protected areas (PAs) for wildlife conservation to provide shelter for
elephants and other wildlife species. The DWC and Forest Department are the
two main agencies responsible for managing the PAs.
It has been observed that a significant number of elephants roam outside
the range of PAs. According to one estimate, the total area range of
elephants falls over 70 percent of Sri Lanka’s land extent.
HEC in Sri Lanka
The existing data suggest that 5.7 million people (27 percent of the
population) living in 142 Divisional Secretariat Divisions in 19 districts
of the country are affected by the HEC. The conflict is most intense in the
North Central, North Western and Eastern provinces while incidents are
regularly reported from the Southern, Northern, Uva and Central provinces,
too.
The HEC results in both direct and indirect losses to humans. The impact on
humans can be identified under four major categories, namely loss of lives,
injuries, property damages and crop losses. Among these, human deaths and
injuries are the most severe. Between 2006 and 2017, a total of 964 human
deaths and 906 injuries have been reported (Figure 3).
During that period, on average, 80 people were reported dead and 76 people
were injured annually. The DWC data indicate that on average, 1,331
incidents of property damage per year have taken place during the same
period (Figure 2).
Elephants often attack many types of crops cultivated in paddy fields,
chenas and home gardens. Despite the absence of statistical evidence, the
frequency and the intensity of crop-raiding by elephants as well as
economic losses appear to be on the rise. On the other hand, the lives of
elephants are severely threatened by the HEC.
Farmers resort to various illegal measures such as using explosive devices
and gunshots to attack elephants. A total of 2,631 elephant deaths were
reported during 2010 and 2019, which can be considered as a high number.
These are cases which were reported, while the number could be much higher
owing to unreported cases.
The conventional measures for mitigation of the HEC include both voluntary
measures taken by the affected farmers as well as those implemented with
institutional support. Among the institutional measures to support the
affected communities are erecting electric fences, chasing problem
elephants into protected areas, creating elephant corridors, distribution
of crackers and flares among vulnerable communities and research into
alternative cash crops.
The limited success of these measures has led the victimised communities to
resort to illegal and hostile responses such as attacking elephants with
guns and explosive devices and use of poisons. It is no secret that these
measures have failed to deliver a sustainable solution.
Insurance as a Market-Based Solution for HEC
Agriculture insurance schemes are among the institutionally-initiated
mitigative measures and as such, are not new to farmers. In terms of the
scale of coverage of such schemes, on average, less than 4 percent of Sri
Lanka’s total paddy cultivated area is found to be covered by both
government and private indemnity-based crop insurance programmes during
2003-2015.
In 2013, the government introduced a compulsory crop insurance scheme
bundled with the fertiliser subsidy programme, which covered elephant
damages also as one peril among others, albeit, for a limited number of
crops.
The Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) has partnered with the
International Institute for Environment Development (IIED), UK, to explore
the prospects for introducing insurance products specially designed to
address the HEC. This is an international study to be piloted in Sri Lanka
and Kenya, another country severely affected by the HEC, with the financial
support of the Darwin Initiative, UK.
During the consultations conducted in the HEC zones as part of the pilot
testing study, the villagers complained about previous unfavourable
experience with insurance schemes offered by government institutions.
Farmers highlighted difficulties encountered in processing claims and the
limited coverage of the existing schemes. The prevailing crop insurance
schemes have mainly been designed to cover climatic risks, i.e. droughts
and floods.
Even though wild elephant risk is also covered by these schemes, the
policies were not designed to capture specific risks and vulnerabilities
associated with wild elephants – in other words, the insurance scheme is
not serving the purpose.
The limitations in the existing insurance schemes have created mistrust
among farmers. Therefore, a novel insurance scheme, which captures the
needs of farmers while also offering a viable business opportunity for
insurance providers should be introduced. This is a challenging task.
Some challenges in areas such as affordability of premiums, verification of
crop losses and claim settlement can be identified as implementing
challenges for specific insurance schemes to cover risks caused by wild
elephants.
The difficulty of monitoring and verification of crop losses can be
identified as a major challenge.
The above challenges indicate that insurance products that are specially
designed to address the HEC are required. A new product that can address
all or many of the above challenges will require careful designing.
Moreover, such a product should be implemented first at a pilot level,
involving a limited group of villagers, to identify the practical issues
associated with it, before scaling up to a wider group of beneficiaries.
Such an insurance scheme will have a greater impact if offered as part of
an integrated solution strategically combined with other mitigation
measures such as electric fences.