Work on the 100th herb garden commences

By Ifham Nizam

Work on the 100th herb garden, under the Environment Ministry’s Osu Wana Dahasak Programme commenced yesterday at the Pillewa Temple, Boralesgamuwa.

Under this Osu Wana Dahasak programme, 24 native medicinal plants each were provided to each religious place of worship. The maintenance of the plants was also the responsibility of the board of trustees or trustees in charge of the religious places, Environment Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said.

The Minister planted a rare medicinal plant called Yakinaran (Atalantia ceylanica). The Minister also handed over another set of medicinal plants to Ven. Polonnaruwa Seelananda Thera and Ven. Gonapinuwala Chandraratana Thera.

The Minister said every living creature needed 550 litres of oxygen a day. In terms of weight, one person living in the world needs 2.3 kg of oxygen a day.

“Oxygen is produced by the ocean and the vegetation around us.

But today man is destroying both. Polythene and plastic are pollutants that destroy both our oceans and land,” he said.

Experts predicted that by 2050 there would be more polythene and plastic than fish in oceans, and therefore, in order to reduce the use of polythene and plastics here, a number of related products would be banned in the future; he said observing that today people were relentlessly cutting down trees.  

“However, we, as the Ministry of Environment, started a tree planting programme called Husma Dena Thuru to increase the oxygen content in our country as well as to reduce the percentage of carbon in the atmosphere. This is where the Osu Wana Dahasak programme comes into play”, he said.

“Today, there is a great deal of interest in the national tree planting programme Husma Dena Thuru. We request that you plant a seedling somewhere in your backyard. Because of the Covid-19 epidemic, people are well aware of the need for oxygen. Without the oxygen we cannot live for even a few minutes,” he stressed.