The Unthinkable!

A global pandemic shutting down most economies and resulting in over half a million deaths, would have been dismissed as science fiction and not even science fiction written by the likes of Arthur Clark or Isaac Asimov. It would have been categorised as bad, cheap, and even rubbish fiction. However, the unthinkable has happened and we are in the middle of it, and it seems the great dominant human race is only just barely “even stevens” with the Virus. Or could we actually be losing the battle and have to resign ourselves to living with the virus and relying on herd immunity to survive?

Coming back specifically to our beloved ex – pearl of the Indian Ocean, my respected friend, and mentor, the late Nihal Fernando (a photographer like no other and one of the last few trained by Lionel Wendt) used to tell me with more than a passing glint of pride in his eye, during our many trips to the remotest areas of our beloved country that we had “13% of our landmass reserved as national parks and conservation areas”. This was in the early 1980s. I wonder what the percentage is now?I read with increasing horror, about the decimation of our conservation areas that is going on. Even after allowing for the natural exaggeration that is always brought in by radical “greenies” the final tipping point has arrived. Politicians who have to appease the ever-increasing voter base with land, have since I remember (started with the Gal Oya development scheme?) purloined sections of virgin jungle to “cultivate”. To be rational a tiny landmass like ours with a population that now exceeds 20 million would have had to use some of our reserved lands. I watched the carefully demarcated elephant corridors of the Mahaweli development plan being swallowed up by politicians with no foresight and even less of a sense of responsibility. I watched and experienced the horrible trauma of elephants cut off by this removal of their traditional paths of travel. Confined to a single area the elephants decimate the foliage they can reach, and they are compelled to turn to other sources of food, which now lies on cultivated land. I have spoken with and stood silently and cried within myself at funerals of people killed by elephants. People who had mortgaged everything they own to cultivate a tiny “chena” in the middle of an elephant corridor or on the buffer zone of a National Park. They had nursed their plantation day and night, living in extreme conditions often under a single “cadjan roof” with no walls. Sometimes with children of toddler age. Hauled water for miles for their Banana trees, only to have elephants “raid it” just hours before harvest. A desperate screaming run at the elephants by the farmer, for he has no other legal means of defence, the elephants are well used to fireworks, more often than not results in death for the human. For to get even a glancing blow from six tons of elephantine mass is not survivable for a puny human.

I have trekked through the dry hot dusty, scrub jungles full of thorns that rip your clothing to shreds, to grieve beside carcasses of elephants crippled by the crude weapons of protection used by the farmers. Death caused after weeks and even months of agonising wounds that have turned gangrenous. Sometimes, one proud and majestic bull elephants (for it is often the bulls who lead the way in groups of elephants living under traumatic conditions) lying on their sides beside muddy jungle pools (elephants always seek water when the end is near) elephants with eyes already dimming at the onset of death, only able to move their mouths weakly and try to swallow some water given to them in a weak attempt to try and relieve their misery.

I hear there is another “ministry” being set up to deal with all land matters. It will no doubt be run by another retired army officer. While being disciplined and in most cases well-intentioned, do these gentlemen have the knowledge and learning that is required to make rational decisions? Radical conservationists’ who I call greenies, will always protest at anything. But someone has to separate the “wheat from the chaff” and it is only people who have experienced both sides of the coin who can do this. Army officers usually either issue orders to which they expect unquestioning obedience or follow orders with little initiative or change while in progress. With all due respect to our “war heroes,” there are exceptions to every rule!

The only “MINISTRY” that was ever objected to was the “Ministry of Crab”, set up by two of our prominent cricketers as a specialty crab restaurant. Probably the only ministry in the Pearl that actually makes a profit.

I appeal to the rulers of the Pearl, as far as I am aware the place to control this decimation from, is the department of wildlife conservation and the Department of Forestry. The office of the Director of Wildlife Conservation although a relatively minor post in the Government hierarchy has many sweeping powers given to it when the great Lynn De Alwis was running things. My suggestion is to form a team of qualified (both on paper and with on-field practical qualifications) individuals and combine these two departments. Put a good administrator in charge, a retired Army office if need be, who will stop the inevitable petty squabbling that will result due to overlapping of areas of concern. This administrator can function as a ministry secretary.

Otherwise, the unthinkable that started in the 1950s and was exacerbated by the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa making Yala National Park a place to be “seen at” due to his own love for the place will continue. The resulting hordes with inevitable commercial exploitation schemes, who poured into this park and all others, due to uncontrolled and unplanned “cash cow” status that was bestowed upon national parks by idiotic Ministers trying to show profits from their ministries, will result in the last vestiges of saving our emerald isle being squandered forever.We lost the Granary of the East status, we are no longer the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, but still, when we return home and fly over the lush green countryside, our Emerald Isle status is retained. It is UNTHINKABLE and totally unacceptable to lose that too!