Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2016-11-22

Ensuring the protection and well-being of the tamed elephants

- The Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance provides for owners of domesticated elephants to register such elephants with the Department of Wildlife Conservation and obtain an annual license in order to keep them in their possession. As such, the proposal made by Hon. Gamini Jayawickrema Perera, the Minister of Sustainable Development and Wildlife, to publish the Orders in terms of the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance, with the objective of ensuring the protection and well being of the registered elephants and relating to the specifications on the places where such elephants are kept, maintenance of good health conditions, the responsibility of the owners and keepers of such elephants, caring for the calves of the registered she-elephants, harnessing them in work, breeding, using them in processions and decorating them with attire and ornaments etc., was approved by the Cabinet.