A voice for wildlife. A project that came to life late last year, has come a long way in a short span of time, with numerous meetings with authorities in trying to bring about positive change in the park, carrying out different projects and public awareness campaigns carried out on different media platforms.
The problems faced by Yala are tremendous, all man-made. Yala is home to the largest concentration of leopards in the world and yet it seems as if we as a country are doing nothing to look after it and its star attraction.
The key issue faced by Yala, to sum up all its problems, is over visitation. Due to the severe numbers entering the park, this has led to ‘traffic jams’ leading to the park and in the park. Because so many vehicles are within the park, when one jeep spots a leopard, all others get informed of it and everybody rushes to get a glimpse of the cat, resulting in either the death of other animals or a leopard itself. Even though according to paper there is a speed limit inside the park, a fact as hard as cement in Sri Lanka is, that 95% of our people do not adhere to road rules and regulations let alone inside a national park.
The team behind A Voice for Wildlife consists of a group of young individuals who feel very passionately about wildlife and are keen to bring about change in the park and thus working with all relevant groups who also have the same ambition. We feel that our generation should be the one to make a positive impact and we must act now.
The group is spearheaded by Charindi Ranasinghe, who together with a couple of other girls got a petition started on Change.org that garnered more than 5000 signatures. This was merely the start.
As days went on the team grew, with the members contributing in different ways, strengthening the proposal to save Yala.
Some of the projects carried out by A Voice for Wildlife are:
Social Media.
Today everything is about Facebook. In fact the starting point of this project was after seeing the pictures of dead animals in Yala circulating on Facebook which drove us to where we are today.
Through our page our key aim is to create awareness though compassion. One of the highlights of our page is that we carry out important wildlife and nature related messages in all 3 languages for maximum reach without any barriers.
Print and Electronic Media.
From time to time, we use these forms of media to keep the public aware of the situation in Yala and we as a people can do. By simply informing people there is a problem, we can create empathy. Without empathy, no good cause can be achieved.
Ground Work.
In order to get more ground information, a team representing A Voice for Wildlife carried out a project in Yala in January to clean the garbage inside the park in the Patanangala area with the permission of the Department of Wildlife Conservation.
What the team discovered was indeed shocking. Garbage overflowing for as far as the eye can see. Garbage thrown everywhere including diapers, sanitary napkins and bottles both glass and plastic. All of this particular garbage has been thrown by none other than our own people. This was not the only thing our team discovered.
The lavatory facilities in the park were nothing short of appalling. There were sinks with no taps and as people were using the jungle as their toilets, parts of the area made it impossible to breathe.
Our team has submitted a detailed report on how to overcome these issues.
Wildlife Exhibition.
An exhibition is to be held in the future featuring photographs taken inside Yala and other national parks to raise money for the solutions provided by us.
Last but not least, the proposal born from the petition.
16 suggestions have been outlined in the proposal and some of them include:
- Entrance to the park is limited to two sessions – morning and afternoon. Enforcement of opening and closing times to the park and penalties for those overstaying their time.
- Vehicle Speed limits within the national park roads.
- The pre-booking system should ensure that all jeeps operate at full capacity. I.e. if a family of 4 pre-books a jeep that could accommodate 6-people, 2 additional people will be selected from the online data-base. A premium will be charged if the guest requests for a personalised jeep allocation.
- The allocation of a jeep to the Yala Park Office as a patrol jeep, which will be used to check traffic conditions.
Regular patrol of the park by officials to ensure rules and regulations are being adhered to within the park
Apart from all of these, we the people have a moral responsibility from the decision of visiting the park. From the hotel/camp we choose to stay to how we travel in the park. Both local and foreign tourists have a responsibility to ensure we do not litter, we do not encourage the jeeps to speed, to adhere to the park regulations and not feed the animals. Even if nothing else, we must bear in mind that the world is full of a variety of species that must co-exist.
Every living being is interconnected to each other and if one goes extinct, it will have a chain reaction and its us who will have