Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How plastic is harming Sri Lankan elephants

It’s six in the morning. Wildlife photographer Lakshitha Karunarathna sits at a vast open waste site, waiting for a herd of elephants he knows will inevitably arrive.

Despite this being an unnatural habitat for the giant land mammals, he’s confident they’ll come. Sadly, he’s seen them here numerous times before.

The elephants are enticed by the now familiar smells of salt, sugar and starch. Lakshitha has spent eight months observing and documenting their behaviour in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province. They shouldn’t be here, yet they trample through each day, often in herds of 30–40. Males, females and even young calves.

Consuming human food waste is not part of the elephants’ natural diet, so this is a problem in itself. But Lakshitha’s striking image Toxic Tip shines a light on another very real and colourful issue.

Lakshitha reveals that “the elephants have become addicted to the sweet and salty flavours of the food that’s been dumped, but they’re also ingesting plastic that’s left with the food waste. This is tragically getting stuck in their digestive systems, causing severe blockages, malnutrition and often even death.”

Why do Sri Lankan elephants matter?

Despite Sri Lanka being smaller than the UK, it’s home to around 10% of the global population of Asian elephants. That’s about 7,500 individuals.

Sri Lankan elephants are an endemic subspecies of the Asian elephant, meaning they’re not found anywhere else in the world.

They’re a vital part of the South Asian island’s biodiversity and are considered a keystone species. Their presence is critical for maintaining the health and balance of the ecosystem in which they live.

Every day, the elephants push down trees and create paths for themselves through dense vegetation. This creates habitat, shelter and access for many other smaller species in the same environment. Their vast and varied diet helps too. With their ability to journey long distances, the elephants disperse seeds over huge areas, helping the growth of a variety of plants.

By protecting elephants, we’re able to protect many other species that rely on them too.

“Elephants are also very important culturally in Sri Lanka,” adds Lakshitha.

Habitat loss in Sri Lanka

Elephants walking into waste sites to consume food is an unnatural behaviour. But as Lakshitha explains, the bigger issue leading to it is habitat fragmentation. This is when areas of habitat are split into smaller, disconnected patches. Natural events, such as fires, can break down habitats in this way but it’s typically caused by human activities.

“Habitat loss could be the root cause of the elephants first venturing to these waste sites. Habitat fragmentation is a big problem in Sri Lanka and a big problem for the country’s elephants, as they need to travel and eat a lot,” Lakshitha explains.

“We still have forest here, but it’s fragmented as our population is expanding, causing habitat loss on a micro level, resulting in more fragmentation.”

Elephant herds walk many kilometres every day, so they need vast areas to wander across. But the development and growth of small towns and villages in their habitats is fragmenting their natural environment.

Paths that the elephants remember – knowledge of which they even pass down through generations – have now been built on, blocking their usual routes. The elephants still follow their known paths, but with the changes that have happened to the landscape they’re now stumbling into communities.

Why are Sri Lankan elephants eating plastic?

To study the elephants’ behaviour and produce the shot he wanted, Lakshitha spent 12 hours a day at the waste disposal site. He’d arrive early in the morning and head home as the Sun went down and the elephants left.

Over a period of eight months, Lakshitha saw patterns of behaviour in the elephants’ movements, noticing that they’d arrive at the site earlier on certain days. He soon worked out that this was occurring on the days following local festivals, when more fresh food waste was dumped at the site. The elephants were getting a taste for salt, sugar and starch. They’d even begun to recognise the sound of the specific trucks that brought the waste!

The trouble is, along with the human food waste, the elephants were unknowingly ingesting the plastic waste dumped with it too.

Why is photojournalism important?

Lakshitha has been documenting human-elephant conflict for three years. Many issues contribute to this problem, but Sri Lanka’s elephants regularly dining at one of the country’s rubbish tips was lesser known.

Photography is an incredibly powerful tool when it comes to conservation and raising awareness about threats to wildlife. Armed with his camera, Lakshitha decided to shine a spotlight on this serious issue that’s silently killing Sri Lanka’s elephants.

As soon as he heard about it, he envisioned the exact image that he eventually manage to create using a drone. “I was set on an image of a single elephant in the frame amongst the surrounding rubbish, taken from above,” Lakshitha explains.

There were often herds of up to 40 elephants in the waste site at a time. However, Lakshitha felt that if he photographed this scene, the viewer’s focus would be drawn to the many animals, rather than the singular problem. So, he chose to show a single elephant amid the colourful waste, putting the issue of plastic overconsumption front and centre.

An elephant wading through tonnes of trash certainly makes for a striking and memorable image. In reality, the waste site was actually around 50 times larger than what can be seen in the final photograph.

But when asked how he felt to have finally produced the image he originally envisioned, Lakshitha’s heart drops. He reflects, “of course it feels good to achieve my goal of capturing the photograph, but it’s also a heartbreaking moment. It’s difficult to look at the photo with positivity, as I know that the elephant captured in the frame will most likely die before it turns 35.”

This age is considerably young for an Asian elephant – they commonly live to around 70 years old. The elephant in Lakshitha’s photo, and the many others that have ventured into the waste site, will likely only live to half their lifespan. This is the tragic cost of having consumed microplastics, polythene and other harmful materials.

The future for Sri Lanka’s elephants

All is not lost, however. Thanks to awareness being brought to this issue in this area, along with an increasing global understanding of the impacts of plastic overconsumption, positive change is happening.

Local conservationists had been warning about the problem for a long time. Finally, following the deaths of elephants that had visited open waste sites, the government decided to take action. They tried electric fences and digging moats, and even closed the site where Lakshitha took his photo.

Lakshitha explains that a key factor in the issue Sri Lanka is facing is that “we don’t have a long-lasting solution for waste disposal here. It’s great that the site has been temporarily closed, but this isn’t a long-term solution, it’s just a plaster.”

Conservation groups are pushing for sustainable waste disposal practices, such as segregating waste, recycling and secure landfill management.

“The best thing that we can do is to educate the next generation. There are some great people doing this in schools and teaching children about the importance of these issues when they are young,” Lakshitha adds.  

What can you do to help?

While the issue facing Sri Lanka’s elephants is localised, it shines a light on our overconsumption of plastic all over the world. It’s yet another stark reminder of how plastic products and their inability to fully break down is impacting nature.

For example, thousands of kilometres from Sri Lanka, on the remote Lord Howe Island off the eastern coast of Australia, seabirds are suffering from ingesting plastic too. A new plastic-induced illness called plasticosis, which affects the birds’ digestive systems, has even been identified.

Reducing our plastic consumption and being mindful about what we consume is a great place to start when it comes to tackling this issue. From litter picks and beach cleans to plastic-free alternatives, we can all incorporate small actions into our daily lives to make a big difference and help the planet and its wildlife.

Not sure where to begin? Use our handy tool to find actions that are good for you and good for the planet.

Raising awareness is also important and photography is a great way to do this. Lakshitha believes that everyone can be a photographer, regardless of the technology they have. Through his images, he wants to inspire younger generations to use the power of their tools to create real and lasting change.

He says, “people need to start with whatever they have available to them. Do something for tomorrow and be a voice for the voiceless.” 

Lakshitha’s image Toxic Tip was Highly Commended in the Photojournalism Category of the sixty-first Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Explore this year’s 100 awarded images, including more powerful photojournalism, and an archive from past competitions.