Designing Corridors and Managed Elephant use Areas for Community-based Elephant and Biodiversity Conservation

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Establishing Baseline Socio-Ecological Data for
Habitat Planning

• Designing Corridors and Managed Elephant use
  Areas for Community-based Elephant and
  Biodiversity Conservation

2
Corridors?
3
Current Concept -DWC Proposal-
4
Controversy ?
A FOWL DEED
No Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)! Section
9 of the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance
(No. 49, amended in 1993) provides that any
development project carried out within the 1 mile
boundary of a National park, essentially, needs
the written approval of the DG of the DWC and
should also conduct an EIA, in compliance with
the stipulations of the National Environment
Act.The gazette notification bearing No. 772/22
of 24/06/93, of the National Environment Act No.
47 of 1980, amended by Acts No. 56 of 1988 and
No. 53 of 2000, specifies that any development
project sited at a river basin, requires an EIA.
This project has only an Initial Environmental
Examination Report (IEER). It has not conducted
an EIA. Yet, the CEA has already sanctioned the
project and it is now in full swing.
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What do we need to find out?

• Are elephants actually using these routes
• Apart from the Protected Areas where are they?
  Is it all year or seasonal? For how many years?
• What is the status of the elephants?
• Are they herds or individual animals?
• What is the current land-use in the area?
• What do people think about having elephants in
  their backyard?
• How much time do we have?

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So how do we do all this?

• Plan
• Equipment?
• Background Data collection?
• Field Work?
• Enter Data and check accuracy?
• Field Work
• Analyze and draft report/maps
• Discuss with stakeholders
• Field Work
• Final Report

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So how do we do all this?

• Plan what do you want to do? What is the purpose?

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So how do we do all this?

• .
• Equipment- what do you need? How do you use it?
• .

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So how do we do all this?

• .
• .
• Background Data collection? What has already been
  done? How does it help me?
• .
• .

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So how do we do all this?

• .
• .
• .
• Field Work? Is what Im collecting what I really
  need
• .

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So how do we do all this?

• Enter Data and check accuracy -is what Ive a
  correct reflection of whats in the field?
• What Analysis do I need to do?
• What do I need to show on the map?
• What data do I have for the background?
• From where can I collect it? Is there time?
• What is the print size?
• Is my layout clear?
• What is the audience?

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Grids and Spatial Patterns of collected data
Fig. 2. The occurrence of HEC in 1-km2 grid cells
in TransMara District (a) crop raiding by
all-male groups (b) crop raiding by female-led
family groups (c) human deaths and injuries
caused by elephants.
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Linear or recognisable pattern?
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
     
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Random Clumps?
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
     
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Ulihiti Oya / Lahugala

• Trackmaker lahugala, mahaweli-c (www.gpstm.com)
• Google Earth (earth.google.com)
• ArcMap (Wasgamuwa/MA-C), (Lahugala), (Seruvila)
• Current Data sets (explore what we have)
• Basic Analysis (clipping, editing,
  geo-referencing, projecting and collecting base
  data)

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What's next

• Clearly state objectives of this project
• Decide on study area
• Design methodology for collecting and analyzing
  data
• Decide on dates of field activities
• Break into groups to handle the main activities
  both before and after the field work
• Decide on timeline
• Develop a grid based map showing land use
  layers, elephant use, HEC, and other important
  factors.