Climate change, pollution, deforestation and water degradation are no longer abstract environmental concerns but mounting economic threats already affecting Sri Lanka’s power generation, food security, trade, fisheries and tourism, Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) President Rajeev Amarasuriya warned on Saturday.

Addressing the Sri Lanka Public Interest Environmental Law Conference 2026 at Grand Monarch, Thalawathugoda, Amarasuriya said Sri Lanka could no longer afford to treat environmental protection as a secondary policy concern when droughts, shrinking forest cover, polluted water and marine degradation were beginning to carry a direct economic cost.

The conference, organised by the BASL together with the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ), brought together judges, lawyers, academics and environmental activists to examine the role of public interest litigation in resolving environment-related disputes and strengthening environmental governance.

In one of the strongest business-focused interventions at the event, Amarasuriya argued that environmental law must now be viewed as an essential part of economic policy, particularly in a country where electricity generation, agriculture, fisheries, tourism and maritime trade are heavily dependent on natural systems.

He said Sri Lanka’s environmental vulnerabilities were now closely intertwined with the performance of key sectors of the economy. Water use in agriculture, for instance, has a direct impact on hydropower generation, while drought conditions can simultaneously hit crop production and reduce electricity output.

Amarasuriya noted that in favourable years, more than 40% of Sri Lanka’s electricity can come from hydropower. Prolonged droughts, therefore, do not merely create ecological stress; they also threaten the energy mix, increase generation costs and deepen wider economic pressures.

Agriculture, he said, remains one of the biggest users of freshwater in Sri Lanka, and pressure on water resources can directly reduce water availability for hydropower generation. The result is a double blow to the economy — stress on food production and added pressure on electricity supply.

He also highlighted the long-term economic implications of forest loss, noting that Sri Lanka has lost more than half of its natural forest cover over the last century. That decline, he warned, is not simply a biodiversity issue. It weakens watersheds, undermines climate resilience, affects water security and damages sectors such as tourism and agriculture that rely heavily on healthy ecosystems.

Amarasuriya said the Sustainable Development Goals should be seen not as separate environmental targets but as part of an integrated development strategy. SDG 13 on climate action, SDG 7 on affordable and clean energy, SDG 2 on climate-smart agriculture and food security, and SDG 15 on forests, biodiversity and mangroves all point to the same reality — that environmental stability is inseparable from economic resilience.

He stressed that forests, wetlands and mangroves are not peripheral ecological assets but productive national resources that strengthen biodiversity, protect coastlines, sustain fisheries and shield communities from climate shocks.

The BASL President also sounded a warning over cross-border pollution, saying Sri Lanka had experienced pollution washing up on its northern shores from beyond its borders, particularly through sea currents from South India. Such incidents, he said, illustrated a basic truth of environmental law: pollution does not stop at political boundaries.

Ocean currents and atmospheric movements allow waste, oil spills and other pollutants generated in one jurisdiction to affect another, he said, adding that Sri Lanka’s strategic position in the Indian Ocean increases its exposure to such risks.

That exposure is heightened by the island’s location on one of the world’s busiest East-West shipping routes. While that gives Sri Lanka major commercial advantages, it also raises the risk of marine pollution incidents and shipping-related environmental damage.

At the same time, he noted that more than 80% of marine pollution originates from land-based activities before entering the sea, showing how failures in waste management and environmental regulation on land can quickly become marine and economic crises.

Amarasuriya said the marine environment should be viewed not only as a natural asset but as a key pillar of trade and national income. Around 90% of Sri Lanka’s international trade is carried by sea, making clean oceans, healthy coastal waters and safe shipping routes essential to the economy.

“Protecting our marine environment is therefore not only an environmental responsibility, but an absolute economic necessity,” he said.

He devoted a significant part of his address to the blue economy, describing it as one of Sri Lanka’s most valuable but under-utilised strategic assets. As an island nation, Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone is nearly eight times larger than its land area, creating major opportunities in fisheries, shipping, tourism and other ocean-based industries.

Sri Lanka’s coastline stretches about 3,620 kilometres, while the fisheries sector directly supports the livelihoods of more than 600,000 people. Yet marine pollution, overfishing, habitat destruction and climate change are steadily eroding that economic potential, he warned.

Sustainable fisheries, marine conservation and responsible maritime governance are therefore essential not only for environmental reasons but also to protect jobs, export earnings, food supplies and long-term ocean-based growth.

Amarasuriya also identified water pollution as one of the most serious and persistent threats to the country’s economy and public health. Rivers, reservoirs, groundwater and coastal waters are under pressure from industrial waste, untreated sewage, agricultural runoff and plastic pollution, he said.

The damage is not confined to ecosystems. Polluted water raises health risks, affects productivity, undermines local economies and threatens agriculture, which accounts for a major share of freshwater use in Sri Lanka. With a large proportion of Sri Lankans depending on groundwater and freshwater sources for daily use, contamination of those resources has direct implications for food security, health and livelihoods.

He said stronger regulation, better waste management, improved infrastructure and more effective public participation were urgently needed to prevent further deterioration.

Rejecting the argument that environmental protection is an obstacle to development, Amarasuriya said the opposite was true. Healthy forests, wetlands, fisheries, biodiversity-rich agriculture and clean coastal ecosystems are central to long-term economic growth and stability.

For a country like Sri Lanka — small in size, rich in natural assets and heavily dependent on tourism, agriculture, fisheries and maritime trade — environmental decline translates directly into economic vulnerability, he said.

He noted that more than half of global GDP depends directly or indirectly on nature and ecosystem services, and said Sri Lanka was a clear example of that relationship. The country’s tourism industry, in particular, has long depended on beaches, wildlife, wetlands, forests and biodiversity, while agriculture and fisheries are equally tied to the health of land and water resources.

Environmental protection should therefore be treated as an investment in economic resilience rather than a burden on development, he said.

The conference opened with a welcome address by CEJ Chairman Hemantha Withanage, while Supreme Court Justice Yasantha Kodagoda, PC, delivered the keynote address on public interest litigation in environment-related disputes.

Justice Kodagoda stressed that environmental disputes should not be approached mechanically through litigation alone. Lawyers, he said, must first identify whether a genuine dispute exists, who the disputing parties are, what outcome is sought and whether judicial adjudication is in fact the most suitable mechanism. Environmental disputes may involve the State, private polluters or both, he observed, and in some instances the State itself may be the polluter.

He urged lawyers to think beyond reflexive court action and to consider negotiation, mediation, conciliation and other forms of dispute resolution where appropriate, noting that litigation can be costly, unpredictable and not always the best route to environmental justice.

The first panel discussion, moderated by Attorney-at-Law Vishwa De Livera Tennakoon, examined advancing environmental rights through human rights frameworks and writ jurisdiction, with contributions from Dr. Lalanaath de Silva, President’s Counsel M.A. Sumanthiran, Deputy Solicitor General Dr. Avanti Perera and Prof. Kokila Konasinghe of the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, who joined virtually.

The second panel, moderated by Dr. Asanka Edirisinghe, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, explored how judicial interventions have widened the scope of environmental law. Panellists included Ritwick Dutta, Executive Director and Managing Trustee of the Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE), India, who joined online, Dr. Ravindranath Dabare, Attorney-at-Law and Co-Founder of CEJ, and Attorney-at-Law Nuwan Bopage.

The afternoon session also featured a guest speech by Supreme Court Justice Janak de Silva, while the vote of thanks was delivered by CEJ Executive Director Dilena Pathragoda.

Amarasuriya, in his concluding remarks, called for a stronger role for the legal profession, the judiciary, civil society and the media in protecting natural resources, saying environmental protection could not be left solely to governments or international organisations.

Climate change, cross-border pollution, the blue economy, food security and water pollution, he said, were not isolated concerns but interconnected national challenges requiring integrated legal, policy and institutional responses.

Sri Lanka still possessed extraordinary natural assets — forests, mangroves, biodiversity, reservoirs and renewable energy potential — but unless they were managed wisely, the country would pay a rising economic price for environmental neglect, he warned.

By Ifham Nizam