Project Life
Volunteer with Elephants and Communities in Sri Lanka

Daily Life

Generally you will have an early start (breakfast at 07:30) on most days. After a short morning discussion with the field staff, you will depart by bicycle or foot to conduct the scheduled research activities, each of which are run a set number of times each month, so there will be times when each volunteer does not experience each activity. You will cover from 6-12km each morning by bicycle or foot, and usually be done in time for lunch back at the field base camp. The afternoons will be spent resting, inputting data and going in the jeep on elephant observation work. Some days you will go to the tree hut for evening and night observations/activity monitoring.

There are a number of different sub-projects which you are likely to be involved in during your stay. Our long-term plans include the following:

• Conducting surveys in the forests, jungles, grass plains and water holes around and within the Elahera/Laggala Forest Reserve, Sigiriya, Angamedilla, Giritale and the National Park for Elephants, and helping to build a database of elephant ranging patterns and social behaviour
• Interviewing local villagers outside the national park and in the vicinity of the Elahera/Laggala Forest Reserve to gather data on elephant crop raiding behaviour, and to assess and record damages caused by elephants
• Conducting direct elephant observations in the Wasgamuwa National Park and taking digital images to develop a visual catalogue and registry of the elephants (usually once a week)
• Mapping of the road and trail systems into a proprietary GIS system.

Please note that the activities you are involved in will be entirely dependent on what particular projects need to be done at the time you are there. Also note that, when outside the park itself, elephant sightings are less common and a lot of the work is in the communities and the buffer areas between the national parks and the villages.

During a typical day the team will be divided into groups which will either walk, take bicycles, a jeep or a combination of transport options. There are three main components of our research activities, all of which are aimed at gathering base-line data for the establishment of a Trans-Climatic Zone National Park, in a sustainable and community-integrated process, while reducing HEC in reproducible systems.