The most frequently voiced complaint against Yala National Park on all international travel sites is that it is overcrowded. ‘Lacontessa1’ from Maryland, USA wrote on Trip advisor in September 2017, that she would love to visit the Park but was worried that all reviews of the park were discouraging and complained about ‘noisy tourists, crowds of vehicles, revving engines and a long wait to enter the park’.
Unsurprisingly, she is not alone. According to Rohan Wijesinghe, a committee member of the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) of Sri Lanka, 70 percent of tourists to the park said they would not come back because though they spotted game, the experience was so bad that it was not worth it.
“We need quality experiences so that tourists will keep coming back,” he said addressing a media briefing at the BRC clubhouse on Wednesday (25) evening.
Overcrowding at Yala National Park, the most frequently visited national park in the country has been a major concern for many years. According to the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), in 2016 Yala, a park of 378 square miles had a total number of 658,277 visitors enter the park in over 700 registered jeeps. In comparison, Kruger National Park in South Africa, which extends over 7,523 square miles only had 950,000 people visit it annually.
H.M.M.C. Senevirathna and P.K.P. Perera in their journal article ‘Wildlife Viewing Preferences of Visitors to Sri Lanka’s National Parks: Implications for Visitor Management and Sustainable Tourism Planning’ note that “Heavy visitor arrivals to national parks are known to cause negative impacts such as interruptions to the behaviour of wildlife including habituation, littering, damages to vegetation and increased cases of visitor non-conformities with environmental standards and park policy”.
In addition, limited perceptions of wildlife viewing can lead to the devaluation of biodiversity in a particular protected area, and this in turn can lead to negligence of valuable biological resources for conservation by state agencies, stated Senevirathna and Perera.
The problem according to the former DWC Director General, Dr. Sumith Pilapitiya, started in 2008 and by 2016, the number of visitors to the park had grown by over 1,000 percent.
These numbers have helped the park increase their income substantially with the park earning over Rs. 612 million in 2016 alone, compared to Rs. 168 million in 2011. In addition, a recent study done by Srilal Mittapala, a past President of the Hotel Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) showed that the economic value of the park was over Rs. 8 billion annually to all stakeholders with the hotels in the area earning close to Rs. 7 billion. Block 1 alone is stated to have 1,400 beds surrounding it. More importantly, Mittapala’s research showed that jeep drivers earn close to Rs. 527 million a year, approximately 86 percent of what the Park makes in a year.
The increased revenue for both parties however, has come at a high cost to the flora and fauna which sustain the park.
Saving the Park
“If it continues the way it does and the tourist numbers grow, the park will not last for very long,” said Vice President of WNPS, Ranil Peiris.
His concerns have been shared in many quarters and it led to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2016 appointing a Committee headed by Dr. Pilapitiya to look into ways in which visitor numbers in Yala could be reduced. Their report titled “An Action Plan for Improving the Overall Wildlife Tourism Experience in Yala National Park (Block 1)” was submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office in March this year. They proposed 31 short term, nine medium term and two long term solutions to solve overcrowding in the park.
“Prior to recommending solutions, we studied the issues which led to this and analysed the obstacles for implementation,” said Dr. Pilapitiya.
The committee had unanimously agreed that the best way to lessen overcrowding was to limit the number of jeeps which entered the park and to enforce driver discipline. The fastest solution to implement was also to ensure divers adhered to set driving regulations.
They had also suggested that surrounding national parks such as Lunugamvehera and Bundala be further developed so visitor concentrations in Yala can be reduced.
The main obstacle to implementing such regulations, according to Dr. Pilapitiya, was political interference and lack of systematic planning in rolling out the regulations.
His remarks turned out to be accurate as the wildlife authorities who reopened the park which was closed for almost two months due to drought, a week earlier than scheduled, decided to implement limitations on jeep entry within a span of five days.
According to reliable sources, a meeting held on October 18 with the Minister of Sustainable Development and Wildlife, Gamini Jayawickrema Perera, Department of Wildlife and the Prime Minister’s Office, decided that the park would be reopened early and that the Department would have to roll out limits on jeep entry by October 23. A press release issued by the DWC stated that the park was opened early due to a request made by the Minister of Housing and Construction, Sajith Premadasa.
This sudden and unplanned programme, said Dr. Pilapitiya was the reason that the Department faced such a backlash from Jeep Driver Associations.
Decisions made too soon
On Monday (23), Jeep Driver Associations launched a protest against what they saw as an unfair attack on their livelihoods. Kadiripura Jeep Association, Secretary Wasantha Vithanage speaking to Daily News stated that many of the drivers had bought their jeeps on lease and that if jeep numbers were reduced they would be affected and demanded that the usual number of jeeps be allowed to enter the park.
Secretary to the Ministry, R.M.D.B. Meegasmulla explained that there was no reason for drivers to protest according to their plan. The Ministry together with DWC had proposed that there be three sessions each day with 100 vehicles being allowed from the Palatupana entrance and 50 from the Katagamuwa entrance during each session. Thus, 450 jeeps would be allowed to enter the park each day.
“This would also ensure that all 600 jeep owners registered with us enter the park every other day,” said Meegasmulla.
We can amend the system as we go on, assured the Ministry Secretary. He added that the DWC had also taken steps to develop the roads in Block 3,4, and 5 so that people would explore those areas, thus reducing the traffic within Block 1 and 2.
“The animals in 3,4 and 5 are still not used to human presence but we think that as more go in there they will get used to it. These Blocks have a similar number of game to Block 1 and 2,” said Meegasmulla.
Wildlife Director General, M.G.C. Sooriyabandara who has been busy trying to resolve the crisis held discussions with the Driver Associations on Thursday evening and said they would resolve the matter once they come to a final solution with the minister.
Minister Perera in the meantime, speaking to Daily News said they were open to discussions with the drivers but they were firm in their decision that 600 jeeps would not be allowed to enter Yala daily.
“We have to control this. There is a World Bank project being carried out in Yala, CITES heads are coming to visit in January and we also have to implement the plan from the Prime Minister’s Office. We cannot let this go on. I have explained this matter to Minister Premadasa too,” said Minister Perera.
He is expected to meet with the Driver Associations this morning (27) to come to a final agreement.
The issue could have been avoided
As the Jeep Driver Associations and government fight over numbers, former DG Wildlife, Dr. Pilapitiya stated that the problem could have been easily avoided if the officials were allowed to carry out their job without political interferences.
“In 2015 we had the ‘Reawakening Yala programme’, in 2016 we started to implement it. We were able to successfully implement that because the Department did not allow political interferences,” said Dr. Pilapitiya.
For an example, in the early months of 2016,Yala Park Warden, Suranga Rathnayake was able to ban over 70 jeeps and we did not have a single protest, he said.
Dr. Pilapitiya stressed that the difference between then and now was that the drivers knew then that the law was being applied to all equally, with no political preference in mind.
Rathnayake’s actions though beneficial to the Park, had political consequences and he was soon transferred out and Dr. Pilapitiya explained that such political interferences led to his own resignation from the Department.
“Government officers need to be given a free hand to enforce the law and the right environment to work in,” he said.
As the Chairman of the Committee appointed to look into visitor numbers in Yala, he also explained that the Department needed to have been given more time to implement the programme and that would have given it a greater chance of success.
Commenting on the system proposed this week, Dr. Pilapitiya noted that it was a positive step to not have all 600 vehicles in the park at the same time, but it also opened up questions of how these vehicles would be monitored during each session and ensured that only the set number enters each time.
The DWC, he said faced grave challenges in monitoring the actions of errant drivers due to limited staff, “We had 500 approved cadre positions which were not filled because the Treasury had not approved their salaries,” said Dr. Pilapitiya.
The easiest method to have compliance thus, was to have drivers themselves conform to the rules.
“We cannot create a social problem as we set out to solve an environmental one. Vehicle numbers have to be limited progressively and done in a manner which will not affect their livelihood.
Jeep drivers do not have problems with the rules. They only want the law to apply to all equally. It is easier to get an agreement with jeep drivers than politicians,” said the former Wildlife DG.
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