The Ministry of Environment stated that all areas that can be declared as forest reserves will continue to be gazetted and officially designated as such following the relevant demarcation process.

Speaking to The Daily Morning, Deputy Minister of Environment Anton Jayakody said that the Government is in the process of declaring all eligible areas as forest reserves. “We are currently carrying out the necessary demarcation work and declaring all possible lands as forest reserves. Several such areas were declared on Environment Day as well. That programme will continue,” he said.

As part of the programme, the Ministry had recently instructed the relevant state institutions including the Departments of Wildlife Conservation and Forest Conservation to re-mark the boundaries of forest reserves in the Northern and Eastern Provinces at the earliest possible.

Jayakody, speaking to The Daily Morning on an earlier occasion, said that in some cases, lands used by civilians in the said provinces have been included in forest or wildlife reserves without clearly marked boundaries. To resolve this, he said that the Divisional Secretaries, Grama Niladharis, and the Departments of Wildlife and Forest Conservation had been advised to work together to demarcate the actual boundaries of these reserves, and then take steps to update the relevant gazette notifications accordingly.

In Sri Lanka, however, forest reserves have increasingly been cleared for development projects, agriculture, and illegal settlements. Clearing of reserves has led to serious consequences such as rising temperatures, more frequent floods and landslides, and a loss of biodiversity.