Monday 30th November, 2020

Wildlife Officers are protesting against a recent unfortunate incident, in Polonnaruwa, where State Minister of Wildlife Protection Forest Resource Development Wimalaweera Dissanayake had conniptions, when they refused to follow his order that villagers be allowed to graze their cattle inside a wildlife sanctuary. He was shown on television yelling at the officers menacingly in full view of the public. What he was forcing the officers to do was to violate the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance. Thankfully, he failed in his endeavour, and his despicable action must be condemned unreservedly.

Minister Wimalaweera and his bosses should realise that forests, wildlife sanctuaries, rivers, lakes, etc., do not belong to the people who live near them, and politicians have no right to bend laws and regulations in place to protect such national assets, to score political points. Wimalaweera is not alone in trying to gain political mileage at the expense of the environment.

At the beginning of this year, State Minister Sanath Nishantha made a public display of his ignorance of ecology and other such matters, during an argument with a female forest officer named Devani Jayathilaka, who courageously opposed a government move to clear a mangrove forest for the construction of a playground. She pointed out that mangroves were essential to ensure that the people got enough oxygen and maintain the ecological balance of the environment. Defending his decision to build the playground, the Minister demanded to know whether oxygen could be ‘eaten’.

Rishad Bathiudeen, responsible for destroying forests, is also a creation of the present-day leaders, who allowed him to launch his deforestation drive about a decade ago. The yahapalana government also gave him a free hand. The Kallaru forest reserve has suffered irreparable damage, as a result.

The climate emergency has taken its toll on the entire world, and Sri Lanka is among the worst affected countries. Its ill-effects are already felt here; we have been experiencing extreme weather events. JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, MP, revealed in Parliament, on Thursday, that Sri Lanka’s water table was receding fast, and called upon the government to adopt remedial measures. One of the main purposes of the huge reservoirs built by the Sri Lankan kings in ancient times was to increase the ground water levels, thus, facilitating the cultivation of crops and the natural growth of forests, which help retain ground water. Those kings also conserved forests, the value of which they had realised.

The present-day leaders consider themselves the reincarnations of the great kings who built reservoirs and conserved the environment, but we think they may have been lumberjacks in their previous births, given their callous disregard for forests, wildlife and water resources. They have, in their wisdom, removed the ‘other state forests’ from the purview of the Forest Department and brought them under the District and Divisional Secretaries so that they could be utilised for cultivation purposes. There is absolutely no need to clear these forests for growing food as enough cultivable lands are available elsewhere, and some of them have been abandoned. On the other hand, if the colossal postharvest losses are curtailed, most locally produced food items will not be in short supply, and the need for exploiting more land for agriculture and adding more agrochemicals to the environment can be obviated.

The government has set up a storage complex in Dambulla to help onion farmers, we are told. That is a baby step in the right direction; there is a pressing need for many more such facilities to prevent vegetables, etc., from going to waste during bumper harvests and in extraordinary situations like the current national health emergency which has affected the food distribution network.

Budget 2021 has unveiled a grand plan to increase the country’s forest cover ‘by using the lands available on both sides of the roads, in schools, government and private offices, and urban environments ….’ (Those who prepared the budget have mistaken the ‘tree cover’ for the ‘forest cover’.) Welcome as these measures may be, what the government must do immediately is to take action to conserve the existing forest cover as a national priority. The close canopy forest cover is disappearing rapidly; it decreased from about 69% in 1900 to about 22% by 2000, according to studies conducted with the help of the UN. It does not make any sense to allow the ‘other state forests’ to be cleared while trees are planted in urban spaces, etc.

The government should listen to the protesting Wildlife Officers, and allow them to carry out their duties and functions, free from political interference. It should also heed the grave concerns expressed by the Forest Officers and environmentalists about deforestation. Most of all, it had better keep its barking ministers on a tight leash. They must be made to keep their dirty hands off forest reserves, wildlife sanctuaries and other such environmentally sensitive areas.