Grazing in Rubbish

With wild elephants foraging for food in smoldering trash heaps filled with endless plastic, broken bottles, batteries, etc, we witness a system so broken that even working to keep elephants in the wild is conserving an unacceptably small piece of an unsustainable future. If there is no wild left, then “saving elephants” forces them into a different sort of captivity—not one of physical chains perhaps, but captive to a world where their rightful home has been stolen and their identity forever lost.

Fragmentation (of wilderness and of public policy) is adding to the crisis of trying to keep wild elephants wild in Sri Lanka.

Documentation of the individual and family elephants that feed at this open dump has begun, with the research going to those who can best support policy change. It’s not too late, but there’s no time to lose.