NO PARTY POLITICS !. NO RACISM !!.
STANDING ONLY FOR THE
ENVIRONMENT !!!
The
Wilpattu Forest system consists of about nine (9) different forest reserves, of
which the ‘Wilpattu National Park’ is a very popular wildlife tourist
destination in Sri Lanka.
The entire Wilpattu
Forest system spreads across approximately two-hundred thousand hectares, and
belongs to the Puttalam, Mannar & Anuradhapura districts of the Island. These three districts belong to three
different provinces, namely the Wayamba, North-Central & Northern
provinces. The Wilpattu forest patch is bordered by an eighty-two kilometer
long costal belt on its West side.
Consisting of many
natural shallow water bodies known as ‘ Villu’, which are only fed by rain
waters, the Wilpattu forest system is considered to be a very unique
eco-system. The water quality of these villu’s differ from fresh-water to brackish-water, and even
to be saline in some.
Wilpattu forests are
rich in bio-diversity, providing habitats to the Sri Lankan Elephants (Elephas maximus maximus), Sri Lankan
Leopards (Panthera pardus kotiya) and
Sloth Bears among many others. It also holds many unique Geological formations,
& Archeological ruins including pre-historic burial
grounds and ports within its protected forest areas.
The Western Ghats mountain range of India & Sri
Lanka together, forms the eighth Bio-diversity Hot-spot of the world. The
Wilpattu forest range acts as the link of this zone’s Indian & Sri Lankan
parts. Most bird migrating to Sri Lanka along the coasts of India, enter Sri
Lanka trough Wilpattu. Therefore, Wilpattu is declared as a protected area
under both the Convention
on Migratory Species (CMS)
and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance.
Unfortunately, a large area of forest land in the Northern
parts of the Wilpattu forest system have been cut-down during the last decade, falsely
claiming it to be a re-settlement project for war-refugees. All the settlers belong to one minority ethnic
group (Muslims), and nun seems to live there permanently – as they all are said
to have permanent residences else-where. Therefore, it is clear that this
project which has a disastrous impact on the Wilpattu Eco-system, is operated
on a entire different political agenda. Minister
Rishard Badurdeen, who was also a Minister during the former Government is
directly behind this deforestation project, and it is sponsored both by Sri
Lankan Government funds and donations
from countries such as Qatar.
Despite the continuous protests by environmentalist and
nature-lovers, the deforestation in the area is happening at a rapid rate
to-date. Only a very little action has been taken to save the forest cover
which is diminishing fast. Therefore, members of many Environmental
organizations and Nature loving citizens voluntarily took part in a peaceful
demonstration on the 14th of December 2017. The participants of the
rally urged the relevant Authorities and the International community to intervene
in the struggle to ‘Protect Wilpattu’.
A oath named as the “Viharamahadevi Convention’ was taken by
the participants of the rally, swearing not to back-up any corrupted politician
at any time, involved in destroying the environment. And also, any politicians
or political parties who are in alliance with such greedy-to-power corrupted politician
are not to be backed-by any nature-lover.
A special report on the environmental destruction that has
taken place at Willpattuwa was handed over to the UN office in Colombo,
requesting the Un General Secretary to pay attention to this issue, as
Willpattu is an eco-system of international importance.
Photos by: Dimal Silva
