Facing an ever-uncertain world order and a period of climate change, Sri Lanka needs to gear up for future governance challenges. Coming out of one turbulent period, Sri Lanka needs to quickly recover from an economic crisis and recalibrate its economy and evolve its governance systems to be resilient and prosper in the coming decades. Sri Lanka needs to reform its state sector and how it governs in order to be ‘future proof’. Longstanding criticism about a ‘large and unsustainable’ government apparatus and the inefficiency of the State has forced much needed reforms.

In making the Government more efficient and effective, one area is often overlooked – remote sensing. Sri Lankans with our typical inward-looking mindset often scoff at anything we find difficult to comprehend or link to our personal existence. For decades, we have been pontifying about our strategic location in the Indian Ocean. However, we have hardly done anything significant to improve our blue economy, ocean governance and leverage the ‘strategic location’ effectively for our national interest. Similarly, many Sri Lankans would respond to suggestions about modern technology – space-based solutions to our many problems, as an exorbitant expense, or a waste of funds.

However, with many Sri Lankans still dependent on agriculture and crops-based industries, the effects of climate change and adverse weather events on the rise, space-based solutions may be a tool we should be taking seriously. Space-based remote sensing can help Sri Lanka by providing vital tools for natural resource management, agriculture, hazard mitigation, and urban planning through satellite imagery and data analysis. Such technologies allow for the continuous monitoring of forests, wetlands and coastlines, enabling early detection of invasive species and changes in land use, which is crucial for conservation and development efforts on the island. Technology also supports early warning systems for natural disasters like droughts and helps in managing agricultural resources to improve crop yields and optimise resource use. Such technologies already help Sri Lanka govern its large sea-going fisheries fleet and ensure their safety and compliance with international law. Sri Lanka stands to gain much with an investment, which compared to the impact of not having such forewarning and modeling capacity, pales in comparison.

With the monsoon weather patterns changing, and crop seasons being affected – Sri Lanka can ill-afford to not to make our agricultural systems more resilient and better prepared for adverse weather. Every year, flooding and landslides also cause significant damage to our communities and disrupt industry at an increasing scale. Similarly, coastal fishing and tourism are also impacted by weather changes. As such, Sri Lanka needs to improve our weather monitoring, analysis and forecasting capacity. All of these sectors can see improvement with the use of space-based remote sensing technology.

This week Sri Lanka officially became a State Party to the United Nations Convention on Marine Biological Diversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement). The island now has to move quickly to enact local legislation and structures to abide by the agreement. The BBNJ agreement, will likely lead to vast oceans spaces – in the high seas around Sri Lanka to be demarcated as sanctuaries and marine reserves, which will have tight regulations for fishing and other activities. As such, Sri Lanka needs to improve our maritime domain awareness (MDA)capabilities beyond the current scope to cover the entirety of the Indian Ocean. Here again, space-based systems offer significant capacity and capability improvement.

Today, Sri Lanka’s third nano satellite, developed with the technical expertise of local engineers, is scheduled to be launched into orbit, the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies in Moratuwa announced. Named ‘BIRDS-X Dragonfly’, the satellite was carried to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the SpaceX-33 rocket, launched by the United States’ NASA on 24 August. Previously, in 2019, Sri Lanka successfully launched its first nano satellite, ‘Ravana-1’, and in 2022, the ‘KITSUNE’ satellite was launched.

It is high time that Sri Lanka as a nation state and its private sector begin to venture into space-based systems. It will help our governance and industries to gain much needed boost for the future.