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Going green, seeing red

22 Jan 2019

By Maheesha Mudugamuwa Environmentalists raised concerns over the increasing incidents of forest encroachment in Sri Lanka and called on the Government to take immediate action against the alleged politically motivated forest land clearances in the Dry Zone. They claimed that the Government was pressurising forest officers in regional offices attached to the Department of Forest Conservation to release forest lands belonging to the Department, while some private fruit cultivation companies were blamed for allegedly encroaching into department-owned forest lands a decade ago. According to environmentalists, currently, the Wandama Forest Conservation bordering the Lunugamwehera National Park faced growing threats as a result of political pressure mounting on forest officers to release some 102 hectares of land from the Wandama-Demaliya area for an agricultural project. The ‘jumbo’ problem Monaragala Nature Foundation Chief Organiser Sanjeeva Bandara told The Sunday Morning that if the Forest Department released these lands for a development project, the human-elephant conflict (HEC) would increase, posing a huge threat on villagers. “The ‘Kadawara’ Tank was built in 2006 and there were about 102 hectares of land which were not owned by the Department at the time. But last year, during a survey conducted by the Department, they mapped those lands and gazetted it. After that, the Divisional Secretariat in Wellawaya urged the Department to release those lands to them, which is not easy or practical at present. If the Department is to give those lands back to the Divisional Secretariat in Wellawaya, it should be approved by Parliament,” Bandara said. “We opposed it even before the Department decided, as we wanted to prevent it from happening in the future. All villagers oppose this because, if they release those lands and they are cleared later, it would intensify the HEC in the whole area,” he stressed. “There are around 70 elephants in the Wandama-Demaliya area and they travel all the way to the Handapanagala Tank, passing these areas. If these areas are cleared, they would encroach into the nearby villages, and if that happens, it would be a disaster,” Bandara added. In addition to the latest land issue, the Wellawaya area also experienced similar threats for more than a decade. There were two major incidents. The Government released 5,000 hectares of land to a Chinese company and 1,000 hectares of land were illegally utilised by two private companies for banana and mango cultivations, he stated. There was a court ruling against these two companies and they accepted that they had illegally encroached in those lands. They were ordered to vacate through the issue of an ejection order, but were still occupying those lands, the Monaragala Nature Foundation alleged. Forest fight When The Sunday Morning contacted Divisional Forest Officer D.P. Prasad, he accepted that there was a request from the Government to release 102 hectares of land now owned by the Forest Department for an agricultural project. However, he did not recommend it and as a result would not release those lands to the Wellawaya Divisional Secretariat. “It was the Government Agent who requested the release of those lands, but it is not possible at present,” he added. Commenting on the alleged illegal forest encroachment by the two private companies, Prasad explained that the court cases against these two companies were ongoing and that the court made an ejection order. “But at present, we are calculating the cost of damage caused to the biodiversity in the area and we have consulted the International Union for Conservation Nature (IUCN) for this. We will order the two companies to pay the damages,” he said. Referring to the lands released for the Chinese project, Prasad said the lands did not belong to the Forest Department but were owned by the State. Ecotourism vs. environment conservation Sri Lanka’s plan to promote ecotourism to bring in more visitors has environmentalists concerned that the planned development would damage natural habitats. Researcher and Environmental Activist Keerthi Hewagoda alleged that the Government, backed by World Bank funds (through the ESCAMP project), was involved in constructing road infrastructure for commercial interests. According to the Eco-System Conservation and Management Project (ESCAMP) map, the Forest Department decided to create an eco trail from the Kudawa entrance to the Pitadeniya entrance. The first phase of this project commenced at Kudawa by widening the existing jungle path toward the direction of Sinhagala, he stated. “The construction of roads or jungle trails inside a sensitive forest can cause severe environmental impact including road surface erosion and sediment yield, pollution and obstruction of natural waterways, slope failures and mass movement, direct loss of habitat (by the conversion of the original land cover into artificial surface) and indirect loss of habitat (by the fragmentation of an ecosystem into smaller and more isolated patches),” Hewagoda stressed. He urged the Government to stop the ongoing illegal road construction in and the commercialisation of the Sinharaja Rainforest. It was the Centre for Environment and Nature Studies (CENS) that revealed the ongoing road construction in the world heritage site last week. Following a complaint made by CENS to the Sri Lanka National Commission for UNESCO (SLNCU), the Secretary General Premalal Ratnaweera requested the Environment Ministry to launch an investigation into the road construction allegation in Sinharaja. However, after an inspection tour in Sinharaja, Environment Ministry Deputy Minister Ajith Mannapperuma said that the allegations made by the environmental organisation were baseless and that there was no such road being constructed. He stated that the road under construction was one that led from the entrance of the forest to the ticket counter, one that was previously in place. Conservator General of Forests Anura Sathurusinghe confirmed that the road under construction was funded by the World Bank ESCAMP project, and that there was no threat posed to the environment due to its construction. The Deputy Minister said that the Government was planning to provide more facilities for tourists who visited Sinharaja in the future. “We hope to expand the facilities to send an electric car into the forest in the future,” he added. Responding to the rumours that Sinharaja would lose its World Heritage status due to the construction of the road in the forest, Sathurusinghe noted that there was no such threat for Sinharaja and that its World Heritage status would not change. Even though the CENS alleged that a road was being constructed and that it posed a huge threat to the unique biodiversity of the forest, several other environmentalists claimed that the road under renovation through the ESCAMP project already existed and that there weren’t any new roads under construction in the world heritage site. Meanwhile, Centre for Environment Justice (CEJ) Director Hemantha Withanage said that the ESCAMP project was initially brought to the country, but not implemented, in 2010 and that again the project was re-launched in 2016. He also stated that it’s currently engaged in developing infrastructure facilities at highly important environmental sites. Environment Conservation Trust (ECT) Director Sajeewa Chamikara alleged that the Government should pay more attention to protect environmentally important sites in Sri Lanka instead of turning them into economically important sites by promoting tourism. If the Government encourages more tourists to visit Sinharaja by developing infrastructure facilities, Sinharaja would face the same fate as Yala and Wilpattu, he added.

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