The many conservation strategies that have been adopted to try and save the wild elephants in Sri Lanka have not met with much success. There are many reasons for this. One is that in the planning process those affected by the human-elephant conflicts – the rural poor - are not consulted. We (the Biodiversity & Elephant Conservation Trust) felt that it was necessary to create, in the rural folk, a clear understanding and an awareness of the elephant and its ecology, physiology, habits etc. This would help them to understand the circumstances better and to look at the situation more objectively. We have also found that the best way to get any message across to the elders is through the children. Therefore we decided to concentrate on school children and that is why we started the Schools’ Awareness Program. This program took us to schools in the poor rural areas where there are human-elephant conflicts which are taking a toll on the property and lives of the humans and the lives of the elephants as well.

From the feed back of our evaluations of our programs over the years, have shown that these programs have had a positive impact in that there is a better understanding of the elephant amongst the children. Their negative attitude towards the elephants has been reduced. The Biodiversity & Elephant Conservation Trust started the Schools Awareness Program, over eight years ago. Also the general discussions we have also had have shown that the program has had a positive impact on the majority of the school children that we have reached. The need to continue this program in the other schools that we have visited is obvious.