Anger as Sri Lanka court returns elephants to alleged traffickers

Court returns more than a dozen elephants in government custody to people who captured them or those who bought the animals from them. Colombo, Sri Lanka – In a controversial order being widely slammed by conservationists, a Sri Lankan court has upheld an earlier decision to allow the return of 14 elephants in government custody to alleged traffickers who captured them or people accused of buying the animals from them. The conservationists allege the court’s September 6 order, based on the government’s regulations, violates Sri Lanka’s environmental laws and fear it could lead to a rise in the trafficking of wild elephants. “The sections on registrations have been included purely to register illegal elephants,” Sumith Pilapitiya, former lead environment specialist at the World Bank and former head of the country’s wildlife department, told Al Jazeera. “Some of these elephants can be illegal, I don’t deny that,” the minister said, adding, “I say there must be changes … let’s say, firstly, the way the elephant was acquired – whether justly and fairly … that must have to be proved.” A day after the September 6 court order, Ishini Wickramasinghe, director general of Sri Lanka’s zoological department, resigned in protest against the order to release the animals to the people they were taken from by the government.