Supporting communities and saving the leopard
Oft Sri Lanka has sighed and cried over brutal and heart-rending photographs of dead majestic leopards battered, poisoned or noosed either around their necks or agonizingly around their stomachs and hanging on trees.
Soon after, we have forgotten these terrible incidents and moved on until the next killing. Déjà vu seems to have been the motto, with no action whatsoever.
This is about to change – next Tuesday (August 19), the launch of the ‘Livestock Insurance Scheme’ will not just augur well for our iconic leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya) but also for the maligned farmer eking out a living through animal husbandry. This scheme is reportedly among the first in Sri Lanka to use ‘insurance’ as a biodiversity ‘conservation tool’.
The Livestock Insurance Scheme to address the Human-Leopard Conflict is being launched under the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Implemented in collaboration with the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) and insurance provider LOLC and guided by the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), BIOFIN aims to support communities while conserving the leopard.
“This initiative reflects UNDP’s commitment to advancing sustainable development and biodiversity conservation in Sri Lanka,” reiterated the Resident Representative, UNDP in Sri Lanka, Azusa Kubota, stating: “We joined this commendable effort because it addresses a critical and often overlooked challenge – the human-wildlife conflict – by offering a practical, community-centred solution.”
Pointing out that the Sri Lankan leopard is not only a national treasure but also a keystone species vital to the island’s ecological balance, she said that retaliatory killings due to livestock loss threaten its survival and this programme offers a humane and effective alternative.
“UNDP’s input focuses on strengthening the programme design, implementation and outreach. We are supporting the development of a strategic grassroots communication campaign to ensure that livestock farmers, veterinary staff and DWC personnel are well-informed and engaged,” said Ms. Kubota.
She added that this programme is a “pioneering model” for coexistence between people and nature. It demonstrates how conservation can be inclusive, equitable and rooted in local realities. “We believe it has the potential to be scaled nationally and inspire similar efforts across the region.”
This 12-month pilot project will take under its wing 1,300 small-to-medium-scale farmers, excluding large-scale commercial operations, in the Sigiriya, Dambulla and Minneriya (Hingurakgoda) Divisional Secretariat (DS) Divisions. These farmers who have fewer than 100 cattle and goats are to be provided rapid financial relief whenever their animals are killed by leopards.
Under the fast-track payment scheme, once verified that the farmer has lost a head of cattle, calf or goat due to a leopard attack, the payment is to be made in three short working days. The Verification Committee will include the Veterinary Surgeon in the relevant area, the WNPS Regional Coordinator, a DWC official and a representative of the insurance company.
Commending this initiative, DWC Director General Ranjan Marasinghe said that the WNPS had studied and understood the ground situation with regard to how the farmers who are attempting to eke out a living were affected by leopard attacks on livestock, which in turn triggered the killing of the predator.
Bena, bena inney nethuwa (without scolding and blaming) the symptom, action is being taken to halt the killing of leopards by addressing the main cause – the loss of income by farmers, following the leopard attacks on their livestock, he said, adding that it was of great value to conservation.
He was also appreciative of UNDP and LOLC.
Conceptualized by WNPS as part of its long-term commitment to human-wildlife coexistence, it is activist Spencer Manuelpillai who describes the arduous journey which led to the scheme.
“We knew of ‘revenge killings’ of leopards by farmers who had lost their cattle and goats but we did not know their extent until we looked deeply into the matter,” says Spencer.
Around 102 human-related leopard deaths mostly by traps or poisoning had been ‘reported’ from the Central Province from April 2011-April 2021. But what of the ‘unreported’ leopard killings which the WNPS felt would far outnumber the recorded killings.

An unprotected cattle pen
It was a vicious circle – humans encroached into leopard territory as settlers for farming or to let loose their livestock for grazing, while setting traps for other animals which injured leopards. For leopards the calves, cattle and goats which were domesticated and grazing or resting in their (leopards’) home-ground were easy prey.
“As leopards eat their kill over 1-2 days, farmers used agricultural chemicals to poison the carcass to kill the leopard when it returned, to ensure that more livestock was not hunted. Poisoning and even noosing are gruesome, painful and agonizing,” says Spencer.
In 2022, the 131-year-old WNPS, the third oldest non-governmental organization of its kind in the world, in partnership with LOLC launched the ‘Multi-Regional Leopard Research & Conservation Project’ (MRLRCP).
Its six centres at Panama, Kotagala, Kilinochchi, Belihul Oya, Kalawana (Sinharaja) and Sigiriya, study leopard populations in human-dominated landscapes by using camera traps and surveys, while also liaising with wildlife and forest officers to facilitate human-leopard coexistence.
The Sigiriya centre covers an extensive area of 14,724.1 sqkm, mainly in the north-central dry zone.
From 2008 to August 2022, the Sigiriya station had found that in the Dambulla DS division, 20 calves, 11 heads of cattle and 11 goats and in the Hingurakgoda DS division, 8 calves, 2 heads of cattle and 7 goats were reported killed by leopards.
As the WNPS dug deeper, chilling data hitherto unreported, had been unearthed in a reconnaissance survey in Dambulla, Minneriya and Sigiriya in September, last year (2024).
As Spencer, Sigiriya Regional Coordinator Nilma Heshani and Pasindu Thirangana trudged the weary miles, observing the areas from which leopards typically approached to attack livestock, they had been told that farmers with very large herds (over 1,000 cattle) were less likely to attempt the retaliatory killing of leopards compared to those with smaller herds.
The shocker had come when the team was told of over 16 ‘unreported’ leopard killings in the 11 months before May 2023!
Through its strong worldwide networks, the WNPS had zeroed-in on how the Indian village of Bera in Jawai, Rajasthan, had turned conflict into a situation where humans and leopards lived side-by-side.
“Compensation was very effective and successful. There was no conflict despite the leopards being highly dependent on goats, sheep and young camels,” says Spencer.
The hope is that this ‘innovative’ conservation financing seen as a win-win for both the farmer and the leopard in Sri Lanka, would be replicated to mitigate other conflicts including the Human-Elephant Conflict in which farmers shoot crop-raiding elephants.
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