The Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS), Sri Lanka’s oldest and leading conservation organisation, had initiated legal action in the Court of Appeal to halt the State-issuance of firearms to civilians, which is driving an unprecedented surge in the slaughter of the country’s wild elephants.
The writ application seeks urgent judicial intervention to stop the escalating killing of elephants both within and outside protected reservations. WNPS argued in its Petition that the crisis had intensified following the relevant public authorities’ decision to issue firearms to civilians for the purpose of protecting crops from wild animals.
The legal challenge was filed in August 2025, over a year before the tragic and widely publicised killing of the iconic tusker ‘Kavantissa’. WNPS contends that this legal action should have served as a stark warning to the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Environment, and other state authorities that placing firearms in civilian hands would inevitably result in the death of wild elephants, which are strictly protected under Sri Lankan law.
In its petition, WNPS highlighted the agonising death of another iconic tusker, ‘Bathiya’, who succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds after prolonged suffering in a pool of mud. The petition noted that Bathiya’s slow death exposed severe resource shortages and a critical lack of capacity within the DWC and local veterinary services to handle such wildlife emergencies. Strikingly, just a year later, the nation and the global conservation community witnessed the majestic tusker ‘Kavantissa’ perish under identical, preventable circumstances.
To underscore the staggering scale of the risk, the petition cited a statement made in Parliament on March 18, 2025, by MP Namal Karunaratne, revealing that the Government had distributed 13,207 firearms to farmers under the scheme. Subsequent court disclosures indicated that an extremely large number of these State-issued weapons remained entirely unlicensed, and unaccounted for, presenting an existential threat to Sri Lanka’s endangered wildlife and national heritage.
Demonstrating a clear link between the distribution of weapons and rising violence against wild elephants, WNPS cited official figures published by the State, including the statement made by the Minister of Environment that 21 wild elephants had been shot in various locations within seven months in the period January to July, 2025, with most struck below the knee.
The petition emphasised that shootings account for approximately 20% of annual elephant deaths in Sri Lanka, pushing the endangered species closer to extinction. The Petition quotes the following profound observation made by His Lordship, Justice N.E. Dissanayake, Retired Supreme Court Judge in an in an inquiry report: ‘When the birth rate of elephants is considered with the annual rate of death of elephants it is clear that there is a grave threat of depletion of its numbers. You need not be a great mathematician to conclude that the day will not be too far away for our elephants to become extinct’.
WNPS further argued that releasing over 13,000 firearms to civilians (including where a large volume thereof remained unlicensed and unaccounted for), was an irrational and short-sighted measure, that directly contradicts the Government’s own law enforcement initiatives to seize illegal weapons and combat underworld crime. WNPS maintains that the indiscriminate distribution of firearms undermines the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance (FFPO), transforms a conservation crisis into a public safety hazard, and threatens the survival of Sri Lanka’s natural heritage.
In 2020, WNPS challenged the Sri Lankan Government’s issuance of 6,000 firearms to Civil Defence Forces to combat human-elephant conflict. This legal action led to the Hon. Attorney General representing the relevant public authorities, furnishing a formal undertaking before the Court of Appeal that the weapons would be recalled and the management of wildlife transferred to the Department of Wildlife Conservation. Despite this court undertaking and formal commitment, the relevant public authorities have repeatedly recycled this failed action, resulting in a continuous cycle of weapon distribution and escalating elephant fatalities.
Through this application, WNPS has urgently invited and moved for judicial intervention to protect Sri Lanka’s iconic national heritage from an unprecedented existential threat.
The Sri Lankan elephant is now listed as endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and faces imminent extinction.
The Parliament of Sri Lanka has explicitly declared the Sri Lankan Elephant as Protected Public Property in terms of the provisions of the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance, rendering any harm caused to this national heritage a serious criminal offense met with the absolute harshest legal penalties.
WNPS remains steadfastly committed to safeguarding Sri Lanka’s majestic wild elephants and ensuring their survival for generations to come.
WNPS is represented by President’s Counsel Sanjeewa Jayawardane, with Attorneys-at-Law Prashanthi Mahindaratne and Dilumi de Alwis, and instructed by Attorney-at-Law Amila Kumara.