Image courtesy Mercy Corps

Today, in an integrated and inter-dependent world, Sri Lanka does not have the leverage to reverse climate change but mitigate and adapt. Climate change is caused mostly by human actions which began with the industrialised West and followed suit by emerging economies exacerbating this. Some consider climate change to be a negative result of human efforts for development whilst others consider it as irresponsible efforts for profit making at the cost of the planet. Wherever the argument lies, Climate Change is real and an effective response is very urgent.

Human development is a necessity irrespective of one’s bearing towards the West or East.  The economic & development planners and the political leadership should seriously consider the sustainability of the society, region, country and then the world to achieve development that satisfies human needs without tipping the ecological balance that supports us. Overriding market capitalism that drives on the seats of global power today is an obstacle to sustainable development. This is evident in the failure of missions of the climate conferences hitherto held.  This is because large corporations in their profit centric drive for hyper consumerism generate insatiable needs and greed that are beyond the limits nature could provide. This tips the ecological balance to the detriment of mankind whilst giving profits to corporations that are masquerading as Angels of sustainability.

Sri Lanka is economically linked and inter-dependent with the world economy but physically it is an island nation. As an island nation, it has opportunities to be independent as regards its sustainability policies to protect its ecosystem. In an inter-dependent world, flow of goods by way of imports and exports do lead to over extraction and exploitation of nature and at the same time a country becomes a dumping ground for imported waste which is harmful to the ecology. Sadly, the economists and development planners’ yardstick of measurement is the GDP. If the GDP is high and derives a high per-capita income, their bottom-lines are met. Unfortunately the environmental and social cost incurred to achieve such GDP is not reflected anywhere. This leads to a situation of one step up and two steps down in respect to the sustainability of a nation.  This is the reason why in spite of all the attractive and indoctrinating rhetoric by planners and politicians, the ground reality has not changed. More often than not, modern market economic concepts are more destructive than otherwise. Professor Stuart Sim of Northumbria University in his book The End of Modernity: What the Financial and Environmental Crisis is Re-ally Telling Us says: “modernity has reached its limit as a cultural form, all because it is ―destructive of both the planet and…socio-economic systems”. This is an incisive edict by a Western scholar on the imperative of an alternative economic philosophy to answer the current situation.

Climate Change

Climate change influences human behaviour in their lifestyles, consumption patterns and migratory patterns. As a cyclic effect this influenced a host of other things like urbanization, industrialization, wars, colonization and the resultant destruction of societies: all in the name of development and civilization in an unsustainable way. The last three centuries of unsustainable development globally snowballed to what is to become now ‘the climate change’ threatening mankind and the planet.

Climate change if not successfully addressed can create havoc in society. It can have cyclic effects influencing our micro climate; impede our agriculture by flood, depletion, temperature change and scarcity of water. Socially, it can influence internal migration to resource rich and safe areas creating new socio-economic and political issues. This can also possibly deplete the forest cover by human settlements that exacerbate conflict with animal habitat and flooding and scores of new problems hitherto un-confronted. This can also create the problems of food insecurity, water scarcity, extinction of businesses & industries and consequent unemployment, the issues of energy, power etc.

In reality, this can potentially change our lifestyles to keep up with the changing scenario brought about by climate change. Therefore, we cannot face this problem in the ‘business  as usual’ way, instead we have to frame policies, educate people, lead societies and set examples of sustainable living to make this a positive change.

The pitfalls that climate change could bring to Sri Lanka are many and need serious and urgent deliberations. However, dwelling on them all is beyond the scope of this article and hence this attempts to dwell on the problems of food security and virtual water that is newly emergent.

Food Security

The issue of food security in the world is not a new phenomenon. It varies from country to country due to climatic and geographic factors. In an inter-dependent and peaceful world, exchange of goods between countries sustains the whole of mankind in terms of satisfying the needs for food. However, today due to population increases, affluence and climate change, sustainable sources of food is becoming a major issue that threatens the security of nations in a geopolitically unstable world. Compounding this, more attention to production and consumption of consumer goods and other ephemerals have rendered agriculture and food production secondary. Also industrialization, urbanization and consequent profit motivations have driven food production to the third or fourth place in some economies. Most developing economies prioritize investment in non food producing industries seeking economic growth without realising the fact that dependency for food threatens their national security.

Hierarchically, water and food are fundamental for human survival and all other goods come later. Therefore it is prudent to give priority to water conservation and food security over and above other needs. All other secondary goods are obtainable in a competitive market but food and water are vital assets to be secure within the domain of a nation state. Dependency for food and water on external sources are not sustainable to a nation even if they are industrial giants. At times of crisis, food and water as commodities can be withheld to make a country subservient. Therefore sustainability of water and food becomes almost important as having a standing army protecting the boundaries of a nation. The command of these resources cannot be delegated to outside sources.

Responding to this emerging crisis of food insecurity, resource rich countries which are having resources other than food are buying large tracts of agricultural lands in the form of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in other countries. They are maintaining these as their national assets as contingencies vis a vis food insecurity. The host nations that focus on increasing their GDPs are rarely aware of this emerging new trend that casts potential food insecurity to the host nation in the long run.

Host nations catering to the food security of other nations by permitting FDI in the food and agricultural sector would possibly face severe political problems within the country when food is exported whilst the citizens are starving. This would define very clearly the rich and the poor gap in a society and would set one against the other in their quest for survival. Therefore it is imperative for a country like Sri Lanka to have policies that ensure food security to its citizens first and then concentrate upon economic growth that uplift other sectors.

Discussions on food security cannot be discussed in isolation of the water management of a nation, since water is the source of life that underpins food production. Sri Lanka is blessed with abundant water though there are regional disparities. It was this source of life that once made Sri Lanka the ‘Granary of the East’. Today, we are dependent on imports for some of our food items creating a potentially unwarranted security breach impinging on our national integrity.

This is common in most of the developing economies, in their rat race to achieve high GDP they forge ahead focusing more in the development of technological, industrial and service base of the economy at the expense of the development of the agricultural sector. In line with this, our economists and development planners too were keen on merely achieving higher GDP and per-capita income derivatives and focussed on economic growth. Surprisingly, to an average citizen, economic growth makes no sense unless it reflects food security or self sufficiency in food. How many citizens’ basic needs are satisfied in this country by the so-called increase in the per-capita income? In the contemporary Sri Lankan economy, the middle class sector is narrowing whilst creating a wide gap between the rich and the poor. This is unsustainable and is a clear proof of a majority living below the so-called stated ‘per-capita income’.

Economic growth increases only the profit of the investor with extremely marginal upsurge in the income level of a worker or a citizen. Apart from this, the per-capita income varies from province to province within the country and it serves only a small percentage whilst a large population is below the per-capita income level and some are below the poverty line.

Therefore considering the current economic status, it portends that, if climate change and consequent food insecurity is not addressed prudently now by adjusting our economic policies to strengthen the food security of the nation, the results would be catastrophic.

For Sri Lanka, the potential food insecurity currently experienced is reversible to ensure food security and to attain self sufficiency. The expertise and the resources as an agricultural nation that we have is still dormant and once the right atmosphere and incentives are provided, would spur an agricultural revolution in a very short time. Directing us towards being a successful agricultural nation is possible but it is dependent upon how we manage the following emergent issues:

Water Management

Being abundant in water, Sri Lanka receives rain from the sky and is surrounded by sea. We have an annual average rainfall of 2,000 millimetres covering a total area of 65,610 Sq.Km representing a total volume of 131,220 million m³. This gives an annual rain water per-capita of 6,165m³/person.

Generally, rainwater is stored as blue and green water. Blue water is what is stored in the rivers, lakes and ponds and green water is the water that saturates the soil. In managing this vast reserve of water that we get annually, we are very much behind in making optimal use of this. Considering the usage cost of this water, green water generally has zero cost since it is saturated in the soil and can be harnessed for agriculture directly whereas blue waters require irrigation and therefore incur distribution and management costs.

In addition to the above, according to studies by the UNEP, Sri Lanka has a ground water potential of 78,000M³ per annum.

Therefore, considering the availability of water resource in plenty and ready for direct use, the policy makers must frame policies encouraging the citizens to make maximum use of the green water and ground water available to produce food by engaging in home gardening and informal agriculture. This would make the cost of food cheaper; reduce food miles and its carbon-foot print to sustain the economy of the people whilst enhancing food security of the nation. Remarkably, the traditional Sri Lankan ‘Chena’ cultivation is a success story, as this makes best use of the green water and does not rely on inorganic fertilizer producing healthy and nutritious food.

Similarly, the blue water that is used for agriculture through irrigation requires strict water management due to the following factors:

• Irrigation systems require proper conveyance and distribution system that does not waste water.
• The system should solve the instances of excess water use in the upstream which preclude sufficient water reaching downstream.
• Encourage responsible and frugal use of water by famers and cultivators.

Noting the above, it should be emphasised here that successful water management especially of the blue water would help double-cropping in the paddy lands and would potentially make us self sufficient in rice.

Apart from rainwater being used in agriculture, successful harnessing of waste and grey water with proper recycling can be a potential renewable resource to augment water supply for agricultural and other uses

Soil Contamination

Soil contamination in Sri Lanka is becoming a major threat to the food chain. Intensive use of inorganic fertilizer is denuding the soil of its nutritive elements and thereby rendering them barren. Therefore to overcome this negative soil development, it is becoming ever dependent on inorganic fertilizer to invigorate its capacity to produce. Apart from this, contaminants such as the residues of inorganic fertilizer leach into the ground water thereby contaminating the drinking water sources.

In developed nations, soil decontamination is widely used as a mandatory process of environmental protection and unfortunately in Sri Lanka this is nonexistent. Instead, soil remediation is done only to improve its productivity.

With the advent of Climate Change, its influence on hydrology can potentially exacerbate the problems of soil contamination caused by excessive inorganic fertilizer use. These can also potentially impact the future of agricultural productivity in Sri Lanka and therefore strict governance and regulation is required on inorganic fertilizer use.

Dependence on Inorganic fertilizer

Sri Lanka was once a successful food producing nation. Sri Lankan farmers were once evidently successful in producing food using their centuries old traditional expertise in agriculture using organic fertilizer. Their methods had high productivity, high nutrition and were environmentally sustainable. With the introduction of modern methods and in particular the reliance on inorganic fertilizer has diminished the traditional knowledge of the farmer on one hand and on the other, has made the farmer ever dependent on the imported inorganic fertilizer.

Compounding this, next to imported food, Sri Lanka relies on imported inorganic fertilizer to sustain its agriculture. If the current trend continues, our farmers may become reliant on imported patented seeds, thus putting the last nail on the coffin by surviving on external sources of sustenance for food.

Facing the future in particular in a divided and geopolitically threatening world compounded by the on setting Climate Change, Sri Lankan policy planners must be cognizant of the impending threats not just from terrorism but from the ever expanding Corporate Business Organisations that are aiming at owning the sources of human life like food and water in the name of development and management. The collapse of Ireland and Greece are lessons in modern economies and how such collapse is substituted by corporate leaders who are unelected rulers in the name of stabilizing the economy. This evidences how Corporate Business Organisations takeover national economies.

FDI in Agricultural & Water Sector

FDI in these sectors should be taken cautiously as this has potential threats to the nation considering the evolving scenarios of domination by global giants in business. As mentioned before, investment in and the ownership of food production and water by foreign companies in a country with untrammelled freedom, can potentially withhold food supply to the producing nation when faced with food shortages but export to profitable markets overseas. This should instead be on the other way round by supplying first to the producing country and only exporting the surplus. National agricultural and water policies should prioritise on national sustainability as opposed to opening up the vital resources to foreign extraction that threatens sustainability. Mismanagement of this would create serious political repercussions in society, as these can worsen food and water poverty already experienced in some regions of the country.

Virtual Water

Virtual water is said to be the amount of water required to produce a unit of crop.  Virtual water is measured in cubic metres per kilogram M³/Kg. Sri Lanka compared to most other countries in the SAARC Region is water rich and its population density derives a per-capita water availability of   6,165m³/person per annum. Apart from this, forecast of per-capita water availability by the year 2025 on a District basis gives a bleak picture needing prompt action by all concerned.

The above table shows that water is a dwindling resource in Sri Lanka and some districts would experience acute water shortage. It should be noted that the impacts of climate change is possibly not accounted for in the above table and therefore needs corroboration with latest forecasts.

Colombo and Gampaha districts are highly urbanised with high population densities where major services and industrial bases of the country is located, the forecast of 449 and 971 cubic metres/ person respectively is threatening. This is due to the ever increasing use of water for industrial and other purposes which can potentially aggravate this situation affecting the environment and the population living in these districts. Location of industries with intensive water use or of high extraction can potentially make these districts environmentally vulnerable to the extent of damaging the region’s water supply. Similarly, Jaffna, Puttalam and Kandy would experience acute shortages requiring effective water management. Since major industries are not located in these districts it is less concerning, however population growth and regional developments would impose a strain on this and therefore would require strict environmental regulations to mitigate this.

Considering these evolving scenarios, future-proofing sustainable food production and water management would require well defined policies and regulations that direct not only sustainable use but also caters to the national demands.

Having understood the potential scarcity of water predicted in the ensuing years, national policy planners should take note of these new issues that virtual water can impose on the already unsustainable water availability.

In an inter-dependent free market led world, virtual water plays a bridging role between the ’water surplus’ and ‘water deficit’ countries. For example in ‘water deficit’ countries, investing in agriculture is exponentially high due to water scarcity. Therefore importing food from ‘water surplus’ countries are cheap and a prudent choice. This does not endanger their indigenous agriculture if available due to import of foods. However, in ‘water surplus’ countries, importing food is unsustainable as it destroys the indigenous food production. Producing food is cheaper in ‘water surplus countries than in ‘water deficit’ countries.

Exporting crops contains virtual water, similarly, the beverages and mineral water bottling industries contains real water. This also aggravates the water scarcity in Sri Lanka due to extraction of water from aquifers and streams for export overseas. These extractive industries impose a severe strain on the nation’s dwindling water supply sources. Notwithstanding this, export of crops from a ‘water surplus’ country is analogous to exporting water in ‘virtual form’. Therefore virtual water and its much tangible cousin, the mineral water that are exported should serve its citizens first and only the surplus should be exported. This would give an asymmetrical advantage to a country like Sri Lanka if it is used as a commodity to counterbalance the importation cost of fuel and energy etc.

It should be noted here that future wars are going to be fought over water and not over oil, therefore it is vital that this resource is conserved, protected and the system leak proofed so that it will be available to Sri Lanka to serve in a sustainable manner.

The threat of peak oil and having secure and sustainable sources of energy to run our economy is very expensive. But paying for such an expensive commodity would in the long run be possible if Sri Lanka regains its status as the ‘Granary of the East’. So that energy producers in turn would be dependent on food producers.

Today, as global scenarios evolve, inspite of the world being inter-dependent, it is also multi polar and asymmetrical when it comes to the survival of nations. Therefore, it is the responsibility of each nation to be on guard about its own survival. Sri Lanka taking advantage of being an island, developing robust sustainable policies and achieving self sufficiency in food and water would definitely get an edge to survive as a sustainable nation. Achieving this by using sustainable food and water as an asymmetrical tool would also create a sustainable balance of power in real politick in the region.

Investment in education & training in Agriculture and Water Management

Ensuring self sufficiency in food and sustainable water cannot be achieved without formulating policies, producing personals and relevant infrastructure.  Our investments should not only be in imported technologies but also in recreating the traditional balance and the relationship our people had with our environment and its people. Our centuries of agricultural traditions and knowhow’s should be improvised to answer current needs and the farmers should be provided with training and practical education thereby binding them with the land they till. They should be recognised for contributing for our food security like the security forces for our defence against our enemies. Farmer education should have academic & professional recognition for their expertise and economic & social recognition for what they are, so that sound farmer education, training, motivation and recognition & facilitation would spur an agricultural revolution to give Sri Lanka a sustainable food security.

Responding to the foregoing factors is an imperative to resuscitate our food security. To bring about this response, the policy planners should develop policies and regulations that ensure national security in respect to our food. The policy makers and other stakeholders in areas of Food & Agriculture and Environmental Protection and Sustainability must work in tandem to bring about this security and give the nation this asymmetric tool.

The writer is a Chartered Environmentalist, Architect and Sustainability Consultant. He can be contacted on rizayehiya@gmail.com

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(Photo credit: Claude Dupuis, IDRC-CRDI)

The current  ‘development’ madness that affects agriculture also prevails over agricultural research and does not bode well for this nation.  It begins with the fact that, young agricultural scientists have to find support for the projects that will ensure their career from the only available source, the ‘chemical agriculture’ companies. Thus they are forced to carve out their futures supporting the only system that they have been trained in. In this way agricultural science in Sri Lanka has largely ignored the knowledge and wisdom that had guided our agricultural traditions for the last three thousand years or more.  Although politicians and bureaucrats, in search of money or foreign jobs, have been insensitive to this destructive process, farmers have regularly questioned this approach to agriculture:

For instance, in 1998 a meeting of farmers convened by the CGIAR (Consultative Group in Agricultural Research) to ascertain the farmers viewpoint of agricultural development, submitted the following statement.

“We, the farmers of Sri Lanka would like to further thank the CGIAR, for taking an interest in us.  We believe that we speak for all of our brothers and sisters the world over when we identify ourselves as a community who are integrally tied to the success of ensuring global food security.  In fact it is our community who have contributed to the possibility of food security in every country since mankind evolved from a hunter-gather existence.  We have watched for many years, as the progression of experts, scientists and development agents passed through our communities with some or another facet of the modern scientific world.  We confess that at the start we were unsophisticated in matters of the outside world and welcomed this input.  We followed advice and we planted as we were instructed.  The result was a loss of the varieties of seeds that we carried with us through history, often spanning three or more millennia.  The result was the complete dependence of high input crops that robbed us of crop independence.  In addition we farmers, producers of food, respected for our ability to feed populations, were turned into the poisoners of land and living things, including fellow human beings.  The result in Sri Lanka is that we suffer from social and cultural dislocation and suffer the highest pesticide related death toll on the planet.  Was this the legacy that you the agricultural scientists wanted to bring to us?  We think not.  We think that you had good motives and intentions, but left things in the hands of narrowly educated, insensitive people.”

The statement was listened attentively by the top agricultural scientists from the around the world.  Hopefully some were sensitized to these realities and are addressing the stated problems internationally. But for us in Sri Lanka, what has transpired?  From 1998 to 2012 have any of the stated problems eased? Has the rate of pesticide poisoning gone down? Do we have a national campaign to sensitize our rural population on the dangers of pesticides? Have we reduced the huge volumes of toxins being applied on the country? Have we instituted a monitoring system for pesticide residues vegetables to protect the citizen’s health? The answer to all these questions is a resounding no!  We need to ask why?  Could it be a result of a lack of interest in creating a healthy and sustainable agriculture for this nation?

It is patently clear that agriculture must begin to look at the long-term health of the consumer, the energy cost of production and maintenance of biodiversity as three clear goals of the production system. In a fossil fuel energy deficient country like Sri Lanka, a national composting program and a reduction of external inputs should be instituted, but this cannot be done without a planned, phasing exercise. Just giving a farmer a bag of compost without the requisite seed and knowledge’ is a recipe for disaster,

The other major concern as stated by the farmers is the rush to get our farming systems addicted to fossil energy.  The statement that current trends in agricultural research were creating a “complete dependence of high input crops that robbed us of crop independence” is an indictment of this trend.  ‘  It demonstrates an erosion of our traditions and of our humanity.   Today, much of the traditional rice agroecosystem has disappeared to pave way for new varieties and management measures.  With this new ‘vision’ the quantity of toxins sprayed into the environment begins to increase and the component of fossil energy used in agricultural production continues to rise.

In today’s world, energy accounting must accompany economic accounting or dealing with the relative value of goods and services.  It allows for predictions of change in state of ecosystems as well as trends in cultural changes.  For instance, the ecological impact of increasing energy input into any ecosystem has been well documented.  In any ecosystem, an increase in the flow of energy tends to disrupt that ecosystem. Field studies on identified agricultural systems at various levels of organization have confirmed the loss of original stability following a large influx of fossil energy. Studies of insect communities have shown that pest outbreaks are characteristic of systems with lowered species diversity, requiring the application of ever increasing quantities of agrotoxins to obtain a good crop

Thus an increase in the input of energy to an ecosystem does provide a measure by the model of agriculture can be evaluated.  In heavily energy dependent industrial agricultural systems, the natural or biological system has been dispensed with and an artificial environment has been created to allow production.  While it can be argued that such systems of production is sustainable as long as the inputs are provided, it raises biological questions, for this system is clearly not sustainable in a biological sense.  It also raises economic questions, especially in regard to input costs and subsidies.  Further, this process has been demonstrated to be increasingly dependent on a steadily increasing rate of energy input to produce a unit of output. In the United States the energy return from corn went from a +3.70 energy return for each unit invested in 1945 to -2.50 by the year 2000.  This has led to the comment that in the US  “all the energy one derives from eating comes from oil”. Is this where we are heading towards  ?

While sunlight provides the primary source of energy for agriculture, the present levels of productivity are biased on a technology, which is totally reliant on fossil fuels. In Australia for example, by1988 two billion liters of fuel oil were being used every year for agricultural production.  This is not accounting for the other inputs such as fertilizer etc.

In Sri Lanka getting farmers addicted to fossil energy seems to be regarded as a good thing. There is no plan for transitioning towards optimal production with little or no external inputs, just the distribution of more of the addictive fertilizer. Concomitantly, no subsidy given to farmers who opt to generate their own fertilizer, however there is great interest in maintaining the massive fertilizer subsidy of Rs.50 Billion and increasing it. 50 billion is a lot of money, there is no questions raised as to who receives it, nor what commissions are paid to keep us addicted

Change we must, but it needs to be done in a judicious manner, incrementally, building our farmers to the goals espoused by the Hon. D.S.Senanayake in his book “Agriculture and Patriotism”.

“ Agriculture is not merely a way of making money by raising crops; it is not merely an industry or a business; it is essentially a public function or service performed by private individuals for the care and use of the land in the national interest; and farmers in the course of securing a living and a private profit are the custodians of the basis of the national life. Agriculture is therefore affected with a clear and unquestionable public interest and its status is a matter of national concern calling for deliberate and far-sighted nati0onal policies, not only to conserve the national and human resources involved in it, but to provide the national security, promote a well round prosperity and secure social and political stability.”

The farmer statement to the CGIAR would seem to signify that we have wandered far from these goals. Our farmers are amongst the most poorly looked after, their traditions are being broken and their contribution to society ignored. Their economy is in ruins; Farmer suicides have become commonplace, one consequence that effects everyone is the poisoning of the nation. It is time to become more aware that the old saying “you are what you eat” and begin to look after our children and ourselves

If the increasing rates of cancer, diabetes and organ failure, are not seen as a sign of the quality of the food and air that we ingest and we choose not to act on this knowledge, we will have no-one else to blame but ourselves when we ourselves become afflicted. With the statistic that 78% of us will die from such non-communicable diseases our individual chances are high indeed !!

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• Packets of White Powder

Photo courtesy Arsenic and toxins found in baby rice food – what you need to know

Suddenly, scores of packets of white powder began appearing in the homes of many farmers we were working with. They were organic farmers, who respected their field and soil. They would never poison their farm knowingly.  When questioned, they made a wry face and declared that ‘the stuff was forced upon them’ as a part of some government program.  Some resorted to putting it onto their home gardens to get rid of it.  This means that, the poisoning of our soils is extending from the agricultural field to the very home garden and the farmer’s enslavement to the chemical salesmen becomes further confirmed.

Addiction is an easy ploy for enslavement. In a port city in France, goes a story; there used to live some of the most unscrupulous criminals. They were the drug traffickers who deal in the cruel drug heroin.  Heroin is addictive, it creates a sense of well being; but one requires increasingly large doses to maintain this sense of well being. The victim who begins to take it becomes even more dependent on the drug and freedom from it becomes increasingly difficult. The traffickers it is alleged, give free doses to children in the 12, 13 age group, in packets of white powder, knowing well that the gullible, naïve, children will soon become addicted. When they become addicted they have to pay and the price they will have to pay increases with the addiction. They are trapped in a vicious dependency cycle and there is no way out. They end up being the chattel of the criminals.

To understand the game being played before us, it is important to understand soil. To many of us soil is the stuff that holds trees up.  We see it as a solid surface for us to walk, ride or construct upon.  Its usefulness in our daily lives does not exceed much beyond providing a substrate and nutrient for our crops.  On closer examination this ‘solid mass’ is home to thousands of species, it acts a sea to thousands of species that travel through it.  It is also the biological filter that detoxifies a large proportion of the poisons that we apply to the environment we live in.  It is a world as complex as, and most certainly older than, the world that lives on its surface.  It lies continuous over most of the land surface of the planet it is in a very real sense the ‘living skin’ of our planet.

The world of soil is bizarre to us who live on the surface.  It is opaque to light and mostly solid.  Communication is by chemicals, such as pheromones, or physical, such as vibrations.  Movement is slow; the faster organisms like the worms are the giants of this world, tunneling through at a fairly rapid rate measured in centimeters per minute.  More common are the fungi that move by growing through the soil at rates measured in centimeters per month, or the bacteria, which have rates, measured in centimeters per year.

It is a busy world, one gram of ordinary farmyard soil can contain over 1 billion individual bacteria, over 100 million individual actinomyctes and over 1 kilometer of fungal hyphpae, notwithstanding plants like algae and animals like collembolids, nematodes or worms.  But most importantly it provides the energy for the plants that grow on it. It is estimated that a hectare of good farm or forest soil provides over 10 Horsepower in energy to the system daily. When chemical fertilizers are added to such soils, the ecosystem is destroyed, biomass is lost and the productive capacity goes down dramatically often to less than 1 horsepower. To maintain productivity in these soils will now require the balance to be provided from outside in the form of chemical fertilizer. Once destroyed the soil ecosystem is slow to recover. Thus the farmer is trapped! As the nation needs to produce its food the government is trapped! It has to provide the drug (fertilizer) to the farmer at a subsidized price. Currently over 50 billion rupees and we are increasing the land area addicted by distributing free packets of white powder ?  Where is the gain? To answer that question one has to ‘follow the money’, one has to answer the question as to ‘where does that 50 billion rupees go?’  After all, someone must benefit from it.

But one thing is clear it is certainly not the farmer or the nation.

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Image from Climate Change Adaptation Sri Lanka

While awaiting to hear of the brilliant contributions that Sri Lanka has made to the just concluded United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), conference in Durban, the view from Durban is somewhat clouded.  The global polluters are demonstrating extreme disdain of accepting any responsibility they have to the rest of humanity who share a common atmosphere with them.  The unilateral move by Canada in withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, a move endorsed by the fossil energy industry, demonstrates how much public interest has been eroded from political enclaves.

The UNFCC itself is a lame duck, it is still unable to recognize or identify the difference in value of carbon originating from biotic sources and fossil sources. This fact is commonsense; that while a diamond, petroleum, a lump of coal, piece of wood or piece of fruit is comprised of carbon, they are not the same, and they have different values.  So in burning them up we have to recognize the value (cost) of each. The carbon dioxide that emanates from them by burning is also different. The carbon dioxide from biotic carbon will always have the carbon isotope C14, while carbon dioxide from fossil carbon will never contain C14.  In time, the differences are in millions of years.

This much is common knowledge, most high school children are already aware of these facts. Then why has the UNFCC chosen not to ‘see’ that there is a value and temporal difference between biotic and fossil carbon cycles?  A cynic might say that many are in the pay of the energy industry. But what about our Sri Lankan scientists, who attended Durban?  Surely they will never sell out to the energy industry!  Perhaps they have already identified these fundamental structural flaws within the UNFCC and we might see this stand reflected in their reports.

In the meanwhile, apart from the innumerable conferences and workshops that we could have, what should we do in Sri Lanka?  This question has come sharply into focus with the news that Russian scientists have discovered hundreds of plumes of methane gas, some  over 1,000 meters in diameter, bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean. Methane is about 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.   Dr.Igor Semiletov of the Russian Academy of Sciences stated in a recent interview “ Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of meters in diameter. This is the first time that we’ve found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 meters in diameter. It’s amazing.”

All this points to the need for immediate action. Landscapes are slow to respond to rapid changes. The effect of the increase in storm force was apparent all last year. By now we should have had some national adaptation strategies. Yes, there has been a plethora of conferences around the subject, but what do I do if my drinking water runs out? What do I do if there is salt intrusion into my field? How do I deal with sudden windstorms ? If the years spent on discussing adaptation had borne any fruit, we would now be seeing public education programs on climate change preparedness by now.

So we wait with hope for information from the Climate Change Secretariat on the range of adaptation strategies that we could use in our respective professions in Sri Lanka.  But it would behoove us to begin adaptive field studies with our farmers now, based on the predictive models that have a systematic data updating function.   The Climate Change Secretariat needs to coordinate all agencies dealing with natural resources, in order to develop functional models for adaptation. From the signs about us we know will have to face the oncoming changes, we need a national plan that informs the public on how we should prepare.

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Image from The Seventeenth Century Dutch Hospital in Colombo by C.G. Uragoda and K.D. Paranavitana

Being Poya with nothing much else to do, we strolled over to the newly restored and opened Old Dutch Hospital, which Colombo’s oldest building and now a shopping and dining ‘precinct’.

A plaque at the entrance notes that restoration work was done by the Army and that the project was basically the brainchild of the Secretary of Defense Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who as head of the Ministry of Defence also directly oversees the Urban Development Authority (UDA), responsible for a lot of the beautification of Colombo. This at times involves the bizarre and wanton destruction of the environment.

The Dutch Hospital restoration, however, is just beautiful. We don’t know when the Hospital premises were last open to and seen by the public, but it was only when restoration work began a few months ago (the area the Old Dutch Hospital is located in was heavily fortified and guarded during the war, given the close proximity of the Central Bank and World Trade Centre) that many first caught a glimpse of this heritage building. Work is still on-going at the rear and in many of the business establishments within the premises, but it’s now possible to amble around and admire the architecture and ambience of the edifice.

Image from The Seventeenth Century Dutch Hospital in Colombo by C.G. Uragoda and K.D. Paranavitana

The building is quite large, and the what’s most striking is the sheer thickness of the walls. This was a hospital, but it’s built like a fortress. Upon entering it, you forget you are in the very heart of Colombo. The World Trade Centre twin-towers are visible only when you look up and because the walls are so thick, there’s no sound of traffic in the courtyards or in any of the eating of shopping areas. Well-known names from Colombo’s retail, entertainment and catering sectors have set up shop, and a few more are under construction. The Ministry of Crab, clearly destined to become one of the places to go to and more importantly, to be seen at, is yet to open but ‘Work in Progress‘, a restaurant / coffee shop run by Hilton Colombo serves up a very interesting menu in a very nice space (the hanging lighting fixtures are particularly interesting!).

It’s quite hot during the day, but in the evening and night, this would be a wonderful space to relax and unwind. Since during lunch time the premises are bound to be packed with those from the surrounding offices, the best time to visit would be in the morning, late afternoon, or evening.

However, as much as the Old Dutch Hospital in Colombo is a tremendous draw to both tourists and locals alike, it is very sadly not the state of affairs in other parts of the country. In a city where public optics matter so much post-war, and social relations are still very strained with the heavy presence of the Army, recent reports in the media and by august groups like the Friday Forum suggest government servants and the military are engaged in the destruction of similar Portuguese heritage sites in Jaffna.

Tragically then, what is so wonderfully, and lovingly restored in Colombo is being irrevocably and vengefully destroyed in Jaffna. It just doesn’t make any sense. Beneath a veneer of development, these actions by government officials sow the seeds of future violence. The underlying politics of reconstruction in post-war Sri Lanka are vexed and not openly debated. Many, including us, will enjoy the beautiful and welcome space of the Old Dutch Hospital. Post-war, Colombo is looking, and indeed becoming, increasingly cosmopolitan. And yet, as we have flagged earlier, even in Colombo, no one dares question the plans of the MoD / UDA, or seek to know more about how things are done, which for governance and public accountability is even more important than how things look.

Forget that, and never mind how resplendent the Old Dutch Hospital in Colombo now looks, we seriously risk going back to those horrible years when its foundations would have rocked to the sound of truck bombs.

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The World Meteorological Organization, part of the United Nations, have just stated that the warmest 13 years of average global temperatures have all occurred in the 15 years since 1997. That has contributed to extreme weather conditions that increase the intensity of droughts and heavy precipitation across the world, it said.

“Our science is solid and it proves unequivocally that the world is warming and that this warming is due to human activities,” WMO Deputy Secretary-General Jerry Lengoasa told reporters in Durban. This view, articulated by a responsible organization should be recognized and acted upon by society at all levels.

There are also the disturbing data sets that clearly show a co-relation between temperature and concentrations of greenhouse gasses. While it is an undeniable fact that global temperature and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are interrelated. The question is when was it initiated? Once a change is initiated, that there exists obvious feedback mechanisms that keeps driving the process, until a regulatory mechanism, such as glaciations, intervenes.

Thus the geologic past is marked by a constant pattern of dry regimes with the water locked up as glacial ice alternating with wet regimes awash with unlocked glacial water.  The oscillation from one state to the other involves massive heat transfer processes and accounts for the phenomena of global warming and cooling.

There is debate, certainly on the frequency and amplitude of the changes before us and of the causes that drive such changes.  However, if there is one unifying feature to the debate it is that: ‘There is a change in the climate.’  This change is already affecting both the quality of human life and quantity of glaciers the world over.  A result of melting land glaciers will make the ocean levels will go up.  Models looking at the affect of an 5 – 6 inch rise in sea level over the next thirty years suggests 16 -34 million environmental refugees, depending on the preparedness of the affected regimes.

The global effort on addressing the problems of climate change is also hampered by the fact that the IPCC is consisted only of people who are nominated by their Governments. Commenting on this feature Paul Reiter   of the Pasteur Institute says, “Its Governments who nominate people, you will find in many chapters that there are people who are not scientists at all”.  This has allowed such fundamental scientific and economic realities such as differences between biomass carbon and fossil carbon to become blurred. One obvious result is that, there is no differentiation of value between these two pools in current carbon accounting by the IPCC.  Until this reality is recognized, disjointed markets will prevail.

Carbon dioxide is not the only contributor to warming on the planet; there is Methane, Oxides of Nitrogen, water vapour etc. In the atmosphere water vapour accounts for 60-80% of its natural greenhouse effect.  Water vapour has been the most dominant greenhouse determinant for the atmosphere and has probably been so over the last four billion years.

In terms of water vapour, forests account for some 48% of all terrestrial evapotranspiration. Thus the loss of forests worldwide, through a climate or biological event, could result in initiating changes in the climate system. As Walter Jehne of the CSIRO states, “It follows that the destruction of up to 80% of earth’s primary (old growth) forests by humans during industrialization could have resulted in a marked loss of the natural cooling capacity and therefore increased global warming.” The deforestation of the planet could very well have been the trigger that has pushed us along the current course.

Sri Lanka was no stranger to the process, forests that remained largely inviolate since their time of formation was felled and destroyed within a period of two hundred years. The natural cooling capacity of the Island was reduced by over 80%. This conversion of the massive forests into carbon dioxide would also have been a significant contribution to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations at that time.

Could the massive rates of deforestation and the removal of the cooling factor that initiated the warming trends that were then amplified by the increases in carbon dioxide as a consequence of the industrial revolution? This process being amplified through the burning of fossil fuels. The Vostock Ice core data looking at past atmospheres seems to suggest such a scenario.

The most obvious way is to address the problem is by reducing reliance on fossil carbon as an index of human development, but there may be other ways as well. One interesting possibility requires us to go back to the forests.

Forests produce vast quantities of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) that enable the condensation of clouds in the atmosphere. Clouds occur in many states, from the thin haze clouds precipitated by pollution and dust to the thick cumulus clouds precipitated by forests and oceans. Each type provides a certain degree of shading from solar radiation, a phenomenon termed albedo or, “the amount of incoming solar radiation reflected back into space”. The albedo of the planet determines the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, the amount of sunlight reaching the surface in turn determines the heat of the atmosphere. The mean value for reflecting solar radiation back into space by cloud albedo is about 30%.  The cooling effect of this action is so great that a 1-2 % increase in the albedo of the planet would be enough to reduce the warming effect of current CO2 levels back to early-industrial levels. Creating a 1% cooling by albedo can help definitely stabilize the climate.

Restoration of the cloud creating potential of terrestrial ecosystems has to be seen as a critically important activity and the financial instruments designed to mitigate the effect of global warming must recognize this potential. This means designing and implementing long maturing, multi age, and multi species systems that mimic or are analogous to the natural mature ecosystem.

Sri Lanka is ideally poised to do so.

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View Independence Avenue in a larger map

Currently they are cutting down the trees only on one side of the road, the side the National Library and Documentation Services Board is on. Groundviews spoke to the workers cutting down the trees under the supervision of Army personnel, who were present driving tractors bearing Army insignia and giving instructions on how to cut the trees down. The workers laughed when we noted that what they were doing was a joke and defacing Colombo, noting that they were under orders which they couldn’t and didn’t question (“api kiyanade karanawa mahattaya“) They also noted that instead of the Weeping Willows, Na saplings would be planted alongside the road. Na (Mesua ferrea) is Sri Lanka’s national tree.

Groundviews also spoke with an Army supervisor present at the scene, who confirmed that Na saplings would be planted once the Weeping Willows were cut down. He noted it was all part of Colombo’s beautification scheme (“Mahattaya balannako – mewa okkoma lassanta api hadanawa. Meka are Kolamba Udyanakarana viyapruthiyata ne ayath wenne“) and that in a short time, everything would look rather spiffy.

The Army supervisor assured me that the Na, when it was fully grown, would look like a ball (“bola yak wage lassanta wa-vei”). Right now though, it looks really awful to see trees that have adorned one of Colombo’s most beautiful areas cut down for no other reason than to plant Na saplings in their place.

It does also beg the question as to just how much transparency there is around the master plan for Colombo’s urban renewal. Conducted under the Ministry of Defence and under the watchful eye of the President’s churlish brother and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, few really know what is planned. Fewer dare to ask. A lot of Colombo’s urban renewal is being done by the Armed forces, including the maintenance of parks. Along with new traffic flow patterns and the tearing down of walls to reveal facades of buildings, parks and public spaces hidden from view for decades, there is much to be celebrated in post-war Colombo’s development. What remains very disturbing is the degree to which even civil administration and planning is anchored to military minds, personnel and apparatus.

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• Colombo goes under water, and not for the first time

There is a new Sinhala nationalist political trend that now throws out a completely novel discourse, which ties up mythical gods as superior to “Jewish Christian Western Science” and claims, the entire Sri Lankan agriculture needs revamping. The Christian Jewish based MNCs have been providing us pesticides and fertiliser with “Arsenic”, these patriots claim. This has created many conflicts within this regime, that prompted the Agrarian Services Minister Chandrasena to publicly say and ask, “We were told to promote rice over bread and now they say rice has Arsenic. What do they want us to eat ? Grass?” And the same minister told the parliament on 06 July, the government has found the soil now has toxic contents in excess and would therefore control chemical fertiliser use by pruning its subsidy.

The argument against the use of pesticides and chemical fertiliser goes thus.

1. All chemical fertiliser and pesticides imported to SL have “Arsenic” which is deadly poisonous (Officially it was said only 02 out of 27 brands of chemical fertiliser had concerned levels of Arsenic presence and those have been stopped from importing)
2. This Arsenic issue, till most recently was never exposed although in the NCP there was an increased number of chronic renal failure patients. (They attribute renal failure to Arsenic, though without any clinical proof)
3. The exposure came with “God Naatha” enlightening Prof Nalin de Silva, Dean of the Faculty of Science, Kelaniya University and another Kelaniya University  Science faculty don.
4. Their research at the Kelaniya University laboratory, guided by “God Naatha” shows alarming levels of “Arsenic” in fertiliser and rice produced in the NCP.  (Prof Ms. Paranagama of Kelaniya Science faculty claimed that all medical and academic persons also go to Kataragama when they buy a new car and seek divine help when building a new house and therefore their research with divine             guidance should not be ridiculed)
5. They therefore claim renal failure in NCP villages is due to this rice   consumption, but do not explain why people in other provinces who eat the   same rice don’t have such renal failure.
6. This they say is a conspiracy by Multi National Companies (MNCs) who work     on Jewish Christian philosophy and is used by the LTTE against Sinhala people

These revelations reject accepted scientific methodologies in research and claims they have adopted a novel methodology in carrying out their research, but have never been peer reviewed for consent and acceptance, as scientifically correct. Nor have they been published as research papers.

Meanwhile, there are others who have joined this campaign and have put forward their own demands. Outcome is stupefying. Sinhala Buddhist nationalism now claims,

1. This is a new strategy that had been adopted by the LTTE as “bio-terrorism” to rid the NCP of Sinhala people. Their only proof is that almost all renal failure patients are from Sinhala villages close to “former border villages” and reject the findings that there is a “hard water” belt stretching from West of Anuradhapura to Padaviya area in the East coast, whilst stretching South towards Kekirawa and Dambulla.
2. Pesticides have to be banned and chemical fertiliser replaced with compost fertiliser in agriculture.

On the first claim, though theorised by a medical person, one Dr. Channa Jayasumana of the Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine of the Rajarata University, there is absolutely no evidence to say the LTTE had a hand in the manufacture of chemical fertiliser and pesticides that were imported to SL, or they had any share in the imports of pesticides and fertiliser. Thus there is no clue as to how the LTTE introduced arsenic to these villages in such organised manner, except in the fantasies of this medical tutor.

Any way, now there is hardly any reason to worry, as the Rajapaksa government is firm in their declaration that the war was concluded with the total annihilation of the LTTE leadership and their organisation. There will be no more arsenic from LTTE sources!

The second claim is a serious claim, as that involves many aspects of social and economic life of the people of this country. And playing with human life is no joke, though it is no serious issue for these myopic Sinhala nationalists. It would therefore serve all concerned citizens if a Sinhala patriot could answer the following questions, in a logical manner.

1. The annual average import of pesticides and chemical fertiliser are 6,000 MT and 50,000 MT that contain only 6 kg and 750 kg of Arsenic, respectively (check with ITI if necessary). How harmful can that be for human life ?
2. IF this total import is to be replaced with local compost fertiliser, how many Metric Tons of compost would be needed every year ?
3. How many Metric Tons of bio degradable waste and or “green manure” would Sri Lanka need every year, to compost the required quantity of organic fertiliser ?
4. What is the total throw of bio degradable waste in Sri Lanka that can be used for compost manufacture and how many acres of land would be needed for “green manure” ?
5. What extent of land would be required for a continuous supply of compost fertiliser or green manure ?

On the issue of modern Western medicine and science being Jewish Christian and thus anti “Sinhala nationalist”,

1. What are these Sinhala patriotic academics teaching to their undergrad students ? Do they still teach Western Science and medicine they claim is conspiratorial and extremely harmful to this Sinhala nation?
2. What type of medicine would they prescribe, if they reject Western Science and Technology as fatally harmful?
3. Would they advocate the closure of all medical faculties teaching Western medicine and closure of all science, dental and engineering faculties?

They still don’t advocate such closure and don’t even call for a change in sylabii to nullify what they claim is fatally harmful to a whole nation. They don’t even propose an alternative higher education programme to stop this “knowledge killing” by Jewish mindsets, they claim is undermining our nation. They don’t have a new and a comprehensive “Naatha Vidyawa” to talk of, leave alone propose an alternative.

Finally, how true are they to their conscience ? In short, how patriotic are they?

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Farming in a sustainable, productive manner has been a hallmark of every human tradition that has endured history. There are many traditional farms existent today that have been productive for hundreds of years. Agrarian societies with long histories, posses the credibility of having sustained themselves successfully under the rigor of survival in a natural world. Having no access to fossil fuel driven technologies, they relied on renewable agriculture based upon energy sources internal to that society or region.  Expansion of farming was constrained by the environment and ecosystem of each area. The advent of fossil fuel changed all this.  The gasoline to power tractors, the biocides and fertilizer salts produced by fossil oil enabled agricultural productivity to transcend environmental constraints.

It was not that movement to fossil fuel went unquestioned, when a display of the new ‘ agricultural tractor’ was done in Sri Lanka around 1933. A race was set up between the traditional buffalo drawn plough and the tractor. Of course the tractor won. When asked what the prime minister, the hon. D.S.Senanayake, thought about this machine. He walked around it with great interest and asked the director of the company “ This is truly a wondrous machine sir, but tell me, where is the dung?” He saw, at that time, the Achilles heel of modern agriculture.

The availability of cheap, subsidized energy encouraged increases in productivity. Agriculture began to be seen as effective production oriented breeding programs coupled with seed and input delivery packages.  Genotypes with optimum performance characteristics for high external input agriculture became the standard for agricultural development.  However, the bioaccumulative nature of these inputs were not considered and resulted in many cases of food and environmental contamination. The first public alarms on the nature of there chemicals, were sounded in the 1960’s with the publication of books such as ‘Silent Spring’. People suddenly became conscious of the effect that the ‘new’ agriculture was having on biodiversity and health, workers became aware of the tremendous risk to human health posed by these new chemicals. It was very much this concern that saw the emergence of ‘organic agriculture’ as a system for the production of clean, safe, healthy food.

Organic Farming, arose from this need, ‘to produce clean food and sustain a healthy environment’.  Organic farming, seeks to re-establish the balance that was maintained between farmers and the land for centuries.

In contrast to the observations of decreasing biodiversity and sustainability in monoculture situations, the pattern of increasing ecological stability with increasing diversity in land use is corroborated by studies of traditional land managers, whose management systems are sustainable and conserve a much higher level of biodiversity than conventional responses.  High levels of diversity in the agricultural field produce positive effects of biological control, spread the risk in marketing and production, as well as distributing labor needs to fit with a single family unit.

The traditional Sri Lankan agroecosystems provided ideal models.  Operating in a sustainable manner for millennia they became co-evolved units, supporting and developing the biodiversity element of the natural landscape, to confer sustainability to the production system. Further, the traditional knowledge of rice production encompassed the whole landscape, its impact felt at the Tank (reservoir), the rice field and its supporting elements.  The value and utility of the traditional knowledge base within the Sri Lankan farming community was also well expressed by the farmers themselves, for example Mr. Mudianse Tennekoon of Nikaweratiya. A traditional rice farmer, he was quick to grasp scientific ideas and could relate them to traditional practices. Although he traveled widely and discoursing modern concepts, he was not a ‘scientist’ and his views were ignored.

Further, In a statement to a national meeting of Sri Lankan farmers, supported by the CGIAR and presented for the Mid Term Meeting of the CGIAR to be held in Brasilia in May 1998. Over 300 delegates issued the following statement:

“We, the farmers of Sri Lanka would like to further thank the CGIAR, for taking an interest in us.  We believe that we speak for all of our brothers and sisters the world over when we identify ourselves as a community who are integrally tied to the success of ensuring global food security.  In fact it is our community who have contributed to the possibility of food security in every country since mankind evolved from a hunter-gather existence.  We have watched for many years, as the progression of experts, scientists and development agents passed through our communities with some or another facet of the modern scientific world.  We confess that at the start we were unsophisticated in matters of the outside world and welcomed this input.  We followed advice and we planted as we were instructed.  The result was a loss of the varieties of seeds that we carried with us through history, often spanning three or more millennia.  The result was the complete dependence of high input crops that robbed us of crop independence.  In addition we farmers producers of food, respected for our ability to feed populations, were turned into the poisoners of land and living things, including fellow human beings.  The result in Sri Lanka is that we suffer from social and cultural dislocation and suffer the highest pesticide related death toll on the planet.  Was this the legacy that you the agricultural scientists wanted to bring to us?  We think not.  We think that you had good motives and intentions, but left things in the hands of narrowly educated, insensitive people.”

In this context, it is sobering to reflect on a favorite quote of the Hon D.S.Senanayake:

“ Agriculture is not merely a way of making money by raising crops; it is not merely an industry or a business; it is essentially a public function or service performed by private individuals for the care and use of the land in the national interest: and the farmers in the course of securing a living and a private profit are custodians of the basis of national life. Agriculture is therefore affected with a clear and unquestionable public interest ….”

However, the goals of modern agriculture discount this public function, based on the premise that the main goal of agriculture is productivity increase, has created a plethora of problems that bedevil all of humanity. The most significant of which are, a loss of sustainability, a loss of biodiversity, a loss of independence, a loss of traditional knowledge and a loss in nutrient breadth. We need a new paradigm in agriculture.

The current developments in agriculture in Sri Lanka run completely contrary to the vision of our founding fathers, contrary to the farmers voice and contrary to scientific knowledge of the impact of agrotoxins on our population. Driven by greed for profits, public interest has been forgotten. In a rejection of the needs of humanity, poisons are sold as agricultural panaceas. In the rejection of a need to become self-sufficient we are being made ever more dependent on external inputs, in a rejection of national needs huge tracts of native forest and handed over to persons and corporations, to be raped and poisioned. The future looks bleak.

Much of the traditional rice agroecosystem has disappeared to pave way for new varieties and management measures. The quantity of toxins sprayed into the environment began to increase and the component of fossil energy in our agricultural production continues to rise. The grim reality of fossil energy based agricultural production is that the price of energy will continue to rise. In order to respond, agricultural productivity should be planned for transitioning towards optimal production with little or no external inputs. Organic Agriculture, Traditional Agriculture and Ecological Agriculture are all approaches to agriculture that have lowered the need for external energy and will benefit the farming community as well as the consumer. A well-planned national program can contribute greatly to a move towards agricultural sustainability.

It is in the context of such a history, that we must address the need to change the current suicidal trend of agriculture in Sri Lanka: As a component of a new paradigm of agricultural development.  There are four critical and fundamentally important goals

1. Reduce the reliance of external inputs to maintain agricultural productivity
2. Increase crop value through better market access
3. Increase the biodiversity of agroecosystems
4. Reduce the threat of non-communicable diseases for the population of Sri Lanka (est. 74% adults in 2011).

If future agriculture aspires to such goals, it is possible to contribute effectively towards sustainable development.   All investment in agriculture should be required adhere to or respect these goals.  This will facilitate the manifestation of a national vision.

A vision is not a set of economic policies that assist in the growth of the global economic system nor should it be an excuse for business or politics to increase their capital. A vision is something that can be shared not only among us but also with the future, a future that can judge the realization of the vision with each passing day.

A land where the rivers flow clean.

A land where its citizens can breathe the air without being poisoned

A land where food security is the cornerstone of development

A land where the wellbeing of the poorest is a national priority

A land where health, education and mobility are vital indicators of progress.

A land where parents are given the opportunity of raising their children without fear.

A land where the values of its people and their traditions are recognized and defended

A land where local business is not penalized in order to attract foreign capital.

A land where ethnic or religious differences do not constitute a barrier to national progress and nor create social tensions

However, national goals such as these are not time bound.  An individual acceptance of the need of such goals are the only thing required, the process to achieve it may take its time depending on how fast these goals achieve public acceptance.

Farming in Sri Lanka is at a crossroads, do we see it merely an industry or a business or is it an essential public function?  If it is also a public function, it must work with the component biodiversity of farms to further the aims of providing humanity with clean, healthy food while at the same time contributing to the goals set out in international conventions such as the CBD, CSD and Kyoto protocol. The standards set for the management of on farm biodiversity must resist the degradation of farm landscapes into broadacre monocultures by maintaining diverse, mixed, production systems, which also provides answers for the current crises brought about by climate change.

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Background:
“We” said the villager holding his dying child in that unspeakable agony only parents in such situations know, “don’t want the right to vote, just the right to live”.  In that statement lies the truth that seems to elude most development work.  There is a deeper human need than democracy or the right to vote, the right to life.  The more we look to science to validate modern society, the more evident becomes the conclusion that we humans share the same evolutionary heritage as all other life on this planet.  This evolutionary heritage, one of evolving to sustain genetic information through environments that vary in time, tells us that adaptation can only be made within finite limits.  All living things stressed beyond these limits die.  It is as simple as that.  Heat or cool a bacterium, algae or elephant beyond a certain threshold and they die.  The same holds true for all elements of the environment whether they be as innocuous as salt or as toxic as strychnine.  This is life, the ability to maintain ourselves without approaching the thresholds that reduce our capacity to exist as living beings.  The right to sustain conditions that are benign to life is the most fundamental right that can be recognized for any human.  Until this right has been recognized, how can we answer the plea of that parent?

We address the human condition so eloquently these days, but is it not time to address the human being? For instance, we are ready to spend billions on the war on poverty.  We are in a race all across the planet to have the best definition of poverty so it can be made into a fundable engine of growth.  Will poverty be defined as a lack of clean water, food and access to health care?  Where will it be recognized as an erosion of the right to life? Or will it be defined in handy economic terms where a change in settings will address the problem?   Unfortunately in the latter solution, any change of settings in the economic system can only be done with the full participation of those who benefit greatly from the current settings.  Changing the rules may not be so easy.  As the cynic at the political convention commented ” It is wise to remember the golden rule – It is he/she who has the gold that makes the rules”

It is in this context that we should examine food security and food sovereignty. The production of food has been the domain of the farming and fishing communities from beyond history. The strong links that farmers had to their land was severed by the introduction of industrial farming and the ‘Green Revolution’. Traditional knowledge that has sustained humanity for over three thousand years was discounted and replaced with a high energy dependent, biodiversity poor, toxic method of farming which has been supported and financed by the international banking system.

Lessons learnt:
However, recent research has begun to demonstrate the dangers inherent in the industrial approach and It has been pointed out that governments and international agencies urgently need to boost ecological farming techniques to increase food production and save the climate,” (De Schutter 2010). This call comes as the international system begins to realize that ‘modern’ agriculture discounted traditional approaches and the data on the value of utilizing tradition approaches are legion.

In Sri Lanka the tradition of selective hand weeding resulted in a crop increase of over 400% in Rice paddies (National Geographic). In Africa It has been shown that a 79% increase crop increase has been obtained through cultural and ecological approaches to agriculture (Petty 2003).

Tree planting methods have changed the environments of thousands of hectares of Sahelian desert to more sustainable ecosystems in Tanzania, Senegal and Mali.

Analog Forestry projects in Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Cuba, Ecuador and Viet Nam have increased both crop and non-crop biodiversity by over 150%. The potential of Analog Forestry to reverse the trends into annual crops have been demonstrated clearly (Senanayake and Jack 1998 )

Given these experiences why does the international system insist on promoting and funding high energy input monocultures as the way forward in modern agriculture ?

One reason may stem from the perspective of agriculture promoted by many international consultants and ‘experts’ who continue to define agricultural goals for the international system. The following statement to a CGIAR meeting illustrates this point.

“The primary objective of agriculture is not to enhance the resource base on which agriculture depends, and certainly not to enhance environmental quality.  These requirements therefore seem to reflect the views of advocates of sustainable agriculture in Western countries rather than the views of farmers in developing countries. Harmsen and Kelley ( in Press)”

This rapacious perspective of agriculture is certainly not shared by most traditional societies.  In fact this view of agriculture is alien to the traditional farmer who takes pride in the appearance of the field, stock and the appearance of the home.  It would be antithetical to the ‘Cultivator-to-plant-”I-thou” relationship of indigenous people (Wilkes 1991).

However, it is precisely this view, that agriculture should not enhance its resource base, that has allowed the international system to have an increasing influence on the evolution of a non-sustainable type of agriculture, in practically all the nations of this world.  It has also contributed greatly to the discounting and demise of traditional agriculture.

Sustainable Agriculture:
Agriculture is production of food medicines and fiber by biological systems.  Thus agricultural sustainability must consider biological sustainability.  In a biological sense, sustainability is the potential to recover from perturbation and stress (Conway, 1985).  A sustainable system oscillates between inflexible boundary conditions.  If the boundary conditions are exceeded, a change in state occurs so that the system loses its original identity and potential.  Thus, the sustainability of this system is determined by its boundary conditions as well as its internal dynamics.  A biological entity is a product of its temporal and genetic history in varying environments.  There are environmental thresholds that cannot be transcended without extinction.  While acclimatization often allows an individual or species to change its measured thresholds (McLeese, 1956), there exist lethal thresholds beyond which an organism cannot transcend (Hart, 1957).  So, sustainability when applied in the biological context will be seen to be defined by inflexible boundaries. If the degree of perturbation or stress makes it transcend the boundaries it looses its identity as an organism or an ecosystem.

Agrarian societies with long histories, posses the credibility of having  sustained themselves successfully under the rigor of survival in a natural world.  The concern for the future is that the model chosen for sustaining future global agrarian society is an energy and resource demanding production system.  No investment is being put into developing traditional societies.

The burgeoning populations of the future may have no other option than high energy input agriculture to sustain them simply because we have not invested in examining any other option.  Some of the reasoning may lie in thinking that feeding a rapidly growing world population, a socioeconomic problem, can be resolved through reductionist, technological approaches (Lappe and Collins 1986, Conway and Barbier 1990).  However, it is becoming evident that the present resource expensive system of agrarian production will become increasingly more expensive to maintain.  This phenomenon is a result of increasing input costs and decreasing productivity of the land.  The predicted global climate effects will also make large areas of monocultures risky.  Thus there may be value in examining other options.

The value in maintaining diversity is the constant availability of a large number of options.  This applies equally well, weather in the case of marketing products or responding to disease or episodic climatic event.  Thus the question to be examined by designers of global society is ‘how much diversity can be conserved within the emerging global society?  If the lessons learnt at the level of local societies are anything to go by, the goals of sustainability will be achieved best by conserving the diversity of global society.

The biological system was viewed as nature and personified.  Gaia, Pacha Mama, Pattini, Valli Amma are but some examples.  The natural constrains that nature placed upon human production systems, were dealt with over years of experimentation and the resulting information encoded into traditional belief systems.  Thus the phenomena of forest maturity was incorporated into the traditions of swidden farmers and the ecological characteristics of wet rice production encoded into the cultural activity of Asian societies.  Modern research is demonstrating the values that biodiversity have on  production systems.  The innovative use of biodiversity is a hallmark of all traditional cultures.

Organic Farming:
Organic Farming, arose from a need to produce clean food and sustain a healthy environment.  Organic farming, seeks to re-establish the balance that was maintained between farmers and the land for centuries.  In contrast to the observations of decreasing biodiversity in monoculture situations, the pattern of increasing ecological stability with increasing diversity in land use is corroborated by studies of traditional land managers, whose management systems are sustainable and conserve a much higher level of biodiversity than conventional responses (Altieri et al 1987).  High levels of diversity in the agricultural field produce positive effects of biological control, spread the risk in marketing and production, as well as distributing labor needs to fit with a single family unit (Conway1987).

The important question is how do we identify success in organic production?  Is the mere non-use of prohibited items meet with success?  Has the maintaining of biodiversity of value; has the sequestration of carbon or other ecological services any value?  Under the criteria that have been adopted for organic certification, such considerations have no value. Moving to sustainable production must take all ecosystem services into account.

Today we witness a radical change in the practice of agriculture.  Both the ‘Green Revolution’ and  ‘Industrial Agriculture’ with its emphasis on energy subsidies to overcome constraints in increasing production, has brought about an enormous change in the biodiversity and sustainability status of agriculture.  The impact of this high energy input, low biodiversity agriculture has not only been felt on the sustainability of Ecosystems.  It has also impacted the sustainability of cultural systems.  The Ethics of such changes have largely gone unaddressed.

Ethics:
Ethics is loose currency in a world justified only by ‘objective’ science.  Yet, it is this very blind faith in ‘objectivity’ that has contributed to the collapse of social relations as seen in the ever-increasing rates of crime and social dislocation in ‘developed’ societies.  This dilemma is clearly brought into focus by the question posed by Upali Senanayake at the first conference on Agricultural Sustainability (Douglaas 1984) Answering a question as to ‘what is so important in maintaining ethics as a value in an objective scientific community’ he answered with the question; “If you are completely ‘objective’ and place no value in ethics, then how can I trust you? By this question he highlighted the value in ethics in maintaining social contracts.

The role of ethics and spirituality has been central to the development of humanity over history.  The discounting of its value in favor of ‘objective’ science may have contributed greatly to the present trend of reducing local agricultural sustainability and biodiversity.  Perhaps it is time to examine a new set of criteria that can advance human development towards real sustainability.

Responsibility:
The call for the rights of farmers to be recognized is indeed valid, but we should not forget that with all rights there are also corresponding responsibilities that have to be recognized as well. In calling for the right to food, we have to recognize that the right to food does not stop at the farm gate or community boundary. There are more human beings living in urban or peri urban situations than ever before. They too have a right to food and it becomes the responsibility of those who manage the food production to attend to their needs. Thus, until those calling for the rights of the farming community to produce food also call for the responsibility of the farming community to feed the urban population, it will be difficult to reform the current status quo and  challenge industrial food production.

Organic agriculture and the elimination of toxins from the food production system will ensure our right to clean food.  It is also clear that well managed small farms demonstrate the greatest potential for meeting these aims. However, ecologically based agriculture will need to consider, the level of output required by each ecosystem under management and recognize the fact that if a small farm is required to produce more than merely sustaining the farmer and his/her family, some level of external input will be required to balance the substantial outflow. Optimizing this input should be the goal.

References :

• Conway, G, R, and E.B.Barbier 1990 After the Green Revolution, sustainable agriculture for development. Earthscan Publications, London.
• Douglaas Gordon K. 1983 (ed.) Agricultural Sustainability in a Changing World Order pp 227-307. Boulder, Colorado.
• Olivier De Schutter, while presenting the findings at an
• international meeting on agroecology held in Brussels on 21 and 22 June.
• Jules Petty 2003 Rethinking Agriculture as if the real world matters, University of Essex
• Hart, J.S. (1957)  Climatic and temperature induced changes in the energetics of homeotherms.  Reviews in Canadian Biology, 16.
• Harmsen and Kelley ( in Press). CGIAR, Jakarata meeting 2001
• Lappe, F.M. and J.Collins 1986 World Hunger, Twelve Myths. Food First, Grove Press, New York.
• McLeese, D.W. (1956)  Effects of temperature, salinity and oxygen on the survival of the American lobster.  Journal of the Fisheries , Resources Board of Canada, 26, 247-272.
• Senanayake R. and John J Jack  1998 Analog Forestry: An Introduction, Analog Forestry: An  Introduction. Monash University Publications. Monash Univ.Clayton,. Vic. Australia
• Wilkes, G. 1991 In Situ Conservation of Agricultural systems In Biodiversity: Culture, Conservation and Ecodevelopment (eds M.L.Oldfield and J.B.Alcorn). Westview Press, Boulder, Colo.

• Future of Farming in Sri Lanka
• Agricultural Madness
• Subsidizing Addiction?
• Accountability and Universal Values in Development
• De-globalisation: A paradigm for sustainable development?

[Editors note: For an in-depth interview on Sri Lanka's human-elephant conflict, see Humans vs. elephants: Sri Lanka’s tragic on-going conflict]

If those hardy Englishmen and Scotsmen who ran large tea plantations in Ceylon were far removed from the local people and realities, western movie makers were much more so. They could just as well have come from another planet to catch glimpses of an exotic island.

But feature film makers everywhere enjoy the artistic license to create whole new worlds, and we willingly suspend our disbelief when watching their creations. Elephant Walk (103 mins, colour), released by Paramount Pictures in April 1954, may not be the most artistic or technically perfect movie from that era. Yet, more than half a century after it was shot on location in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the film can still hold an audience captivated with a sense of drama and intrigue.

Elephant Walk was directed by William Dieterle, and based on the 1948 novel with the same title, written by “Robert Standish” — actually the pseudonym of English novelist Digby George Gerahty (1898-1981). It starred Elizabeth Taylor, Dana Andrews, Peter Finch and Abraham Sofaer.

This film was among several that were shot on location in Ceylon in the 1950s when Hollywood studios ‘discovered’ the island as an exotic, relatively inexpensive and hassle-free location. But this is the only one whose story is actually set in Ceylon.

Much of the movie’s historical appeal stems from the involvement of Elizabeth Taylor. She plays the character of Ruth, a young woman who marries a British tea planter, John Wiley, and follows him to Ceylon. She soon finds out that things aren’t entirely idyllic in the tropical paradise.

The husband’s late father had built the estate bungalow on the path where elephants routinely migrate. With their long memories and entrenched habits, they have resented that misappropriation ever since. The occasional confrontations between estate workers and elephants culminate when the pachyderms charge en masse just when the estate’s population is weakened and distracted by a cholera epidemic…

Vivien Leigh, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars at the time, was originally cast to play Ruth Wiley’s role. She even arrived in Ceylon and filmed some scenes before she developed bipolar disorder. So Liz Taylor, at 22 already well on her way to the A-List, was hurriedly called in. (Many long shots — and some from behind — used in the final edit are actually those of Leigh!)

Prescient movie?

However, Elephant Walk’s significance does not rely solely on Liz Taylor’s alluring screen presence or Vivien Leigh’s derrière. The movie has been remarkably prescient on several fronts, which can only be appreciated now — in another century, and on a wholly different island. A key theme of the movie was the human-elephant conflict, but passing references to social exclusion and rampant poverty in post-independent Ceylon are also of much interest.

I doubt if Paramount’s writers were intentionally making any social commentary. One of the studio’s co-founders, Samuel Goldwyn, had famously cautioned against it. When asked about movies with a “message” some years earlier, he had replied, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”

Nevertheless, the movie (and perhaps the book on which it is based, which I haven’t read) was contrasting the British planters’ opulent lifestyle with the forced austerity in post-War Britain. Even more striking is the poverty and squalor among the hundreds of resident workers whose sweat, toil — and occasional tears — ensured that the ‘cups that cheer’ were always brimming.

Perhaps it wasn’t so evident at the time the movie was first released, but it is also a celluloid requiem to the British Empire on which the sun was decidedly setting, and the Plantation Raj whose halcyon days were receding into the past. The hard-working and hard-drinking white males, taming the hilly terrain in the humid tropics, would be the last of their kind.

‘Brown Sahibs’ had already taken over the reins of political power in Colombo. Up in the salubrious hills, where life moved at a slower pace, the winds of change had just begun to gain momentum. In less than half a generation, it would become a gale of nationalisation dismantling one of the most efficient inter-continental industrial operations launched during the Victorian era.

The 1970s were particularly turbulent for the island’s plantation sector. The remaining British plantation companies were unceremoniously ushered out. Well-intended but badly implemented land reforms brought down the quality, productivity and global competitiveness of Ceylon Tea. Although these socialist misadventures were mercifully short-lived, they inflicted enough damage: even after three decades of economic liberalisation, the industry has yet to recover completely.

Despite all the socialist rhetoric that justified it, nationalisation didn’t deliver that many social benefits either. A case in point: Sri Lanka’s one million strong plantation workers still have markedly lower social indicators. In fact, the poor housing and sanitary conditions that triggered an outbreak of cholera in Elephant Walk still persist on some tea estates. There is still an enormous gulf in the quality of living (and lifestyles) of plantation managers and their resident workers — except that the masters are no longer white.

In the mid 1990s, while researching a series of articles on the socio-economic status of plantation communities, I came face to face with this stark reality. The workers, descendents of indentured labourers that the British brought in from southern India, remain trapped in the past. Their deprivation is often masked by the country’s impressive national level human development indicators.

DDT Generation

But back in the early 1950s, when the movie’s story takes place, the party was still in full swing — albeit under the bemused eyes of the locals and the piercing gaze of the elephants.

In 1953, the year Elephant Walk was filmed, Ceylon was experiencing a post-War and post-independence population boom, aided and abetted by DDT that had drastically reduced deaths from malaria. A census that year revealed a little over 8 million people. This number has swelled more than two and half times since: exactly how many of us walk this island will be known by end 2011, when our first full head count in 30 years is completed.

By coincidence, the first ever scientific census of wild elephants in Sri Lanka is also taking place this year. It should reveal just how much our growing numbers — and rising consumption patterns — have impacted the largest mammals who share this crowded island.

Elephant Walk ends with the dispossessed herd reclaiming its lost migratory route. The luxurious bungalow burns down in the climaxing rampage. (To the discerning eye, the elephants look too tame, and the ‘rampage’ too orderly. That is understandable: even the most dare-devil Hollywood stunt director can’t get wild elephants to follow a script. So, according to the Internet Movie Database, circus elephants were used.)

As the humans escape with their lives, John Wiley looks at his house on fire with equanimity. He promises Ruth to build a new place “somewhere else.” Let the elephants have this patch.

If only life imitated art in this respect, the story of the Lankan elephant might have been different. But the determination and ruthlessness with which large scale irrigation and agricultural development projects were pursued since the 1950s left no room for such sentimentality.

Tracing the roots of Sri Lanka’s human-elephant conflict, conservationist Jayantha Jayewardene wrote in 1994: “Where their normal migratory routes were impeded by development, the elephants came into confrontation with the new settlers who had displaced them from their habitats. Here they found a ready source of food in the new crops that had been cultivated. The human-elephant confrontations and subsequently conflicts began. With the increasing pressure for sufficient food in the forests, the elephants not only moved into the new settlements but were practically forced to move into the old (purana) villages as well. The elephants had hitherto co-existed peacefully with the purana villages but here too, conflicts began to surface.” (The Elephant in Sri Lanka, p96).

How best to resolve this long-simmering conflict is still being debated by scientists, environmentalists and officials. Meanwhile, every passing year, a few dozen elephants and humans are killed in increasingly violent encounters, further diminishing the prospects of a peaceful co-existence.

Finally, Elephant Walk to me is yet another visual reminder of just how dependent we are on the seasonal Indian Oceanic winds called the Monsoons that bring us most of our rain. Everyone — from the mighty tuskers and arrogant planters to the humblest subsistence farmers — hopes and yearns for a timely and ample Monsoon. (As I write this, in late May, 20 million Lankans are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the more potent South-west Monsoon.)

We are not alone. Close to two billion other Asians share our climatic legacy and predicament. Faced with accelerated climate change, we should worry far more about likely disruptions to these life-giving, rain-bearing winds. Scientists have recently warned that delayed and/or weakened Monsoons could hit us sooner — and harder — than the widely feared rise in sea levels.

Like it or not, we are all Children of the Monsoon.

PS: The mix of Empire, Plantation Raj and the Monsoon continues to attract film makers. An enchanting treatment of these elements, somewhat reminiscent of Elephant Walk but with a clear political element, is found in Before the Rains (98 mins, 2007). This Indian-British production, directed (and beautifully shot) by Santosh Sivan and featuring Nandita Das in a lead role, is set in Kerala’s Malabar District in the 1930s. The story — with much stronger characters and ‘native’ sentiments — unfolds against the backdrop of a growing Indian nationalist movement.

Science writer Nalaka Gunawardene is far more interested in human-induced wild-life than wildlife in the jungles. He blogs on science, development and conservation issues at https://movingimages.wordpress.com He thanks Richard Boyle for his inputs to this essay.

• Causing a storm in a tea plantation
• Humans vs. elephants: Sri Lanka’s tragic on-going conflict
• News Flash: I was not visited by a pink elephant
• Unshed Tears
• The Wild Elephant Census in Sri Lanka

The Daily Mirror a few days ago noted that in a bid to ease the growing human-elephant conflict in the country, the Wildlife Conservation Department had undertaken moves to restrict the habitat of rogue elephants to a 2500 acre jungle area in Veheragala, Lunugamvehera and Horawapathana. Quoting the Wildlife Conservation Department’s Director General, Chandrawansa Pathiraja, the paper noted that rogue elephants from other areas would be trans-located to these locations, which will be bordered with electric fencing.

Similar efforts, however, in the past have failed. Jayantha Jayewardene is the Managing Trustee of the Biodiversity and Elephant Conservation Trust shared some thoughts on the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka on a televised interviewed.

We begin our conversation by looking at precisely why there is a human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka, looking at the issues over land use (framing) and demarcation (fencing and other means). Giving a detailed explanation of the nature and extent of the home range and the size of the herd that inhabits it, Jayantha looks into the reasons why elephants are increasingly attacking villagers, and damaging villages.

This is a serious issue. Over 10 years, there have been over 1,300 elephants that have been killed and on average, over 60 humans a year for the past 15 years are killed by elephants.

Jayantha makes the point that there is no guarantee of success when translocating an elephant or herd, and gives the example of one tusker who travelled back over 100 miles, crossed a river and went back to the area he was moved from. Jayantha also speaks about the problem of habituation, when elephants become more aggressive over time and get used to the means to drive them away, like bright lights and firecrackers.

Another challenge he points out is the almost complete lack of coordination and collaboration between various line ministries responsible for the environment and wildlife. Countering the assertion of the Wildlife Conservation Department’s Director General, Chandrawansa Pathiraja that electric fencing is enough to keep elephants within their new territory, Jayantha submits that over time, these fences are often neglected and that on occasion, the villagers themselves take the wire away for their own use. Tragically, he also notes that some drunk villagers also decide, in a moment of bacchanalic bravado, to take on the elephants, with predictable consequences.

Noting that much could be learnt on how to tackle the human-elephant conflict by looking at examples from South and South-East Asia, also stating that even those most affected by the violence are against culling them, and just want a clear demarcation of territory.

Jayantha ends by sharing some thoughts on the future of elephant conservation, and how what is a very emotional issue needs dispassionate, pragmatic solutions.

• The Wild Elephant Census in Sri Lanka
• Unshed Tears
• Elephant Walk revisited: Mixing Tea, Jumbos and Monsoons
• Subsidizing Addiction?
• Overseeing the Farm

Iranganie Serasinghe needs no introduction to many Sri Lankans. For decades she has graced stage, cinema and televisions with characters indelibly etched in memory. I grew up with Iranganie playing Sudu Hamine in Yashorawaya as staple viewing, as much as her role in Doo Daruwo which over 5 years was an epic narrative played out on our televisions every week.

Iraganie is part of the old guard of actors, trained in English method acting, starting out in theatre and then branching out to cinema and television. Her entry into cinema was with Rekava, the first Sinhalese film which was fully shot in Ceylon, the first in the country to be shot outdoors and to date, the only Sri-Lankan film to be nominated for the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes.

Film-making was fundamentally different over 50 years ago, and Iranganie begins our conversation by recalling what it was like to be part of Rekava directed by the famed Lester James Peiris. We talk about her travails of working in Sinhala cinema and speaking Sinhala, given that it was a very distant second language for her. She spoke of how her rural upbringing helped her to learn the expressions and their delivery, and also flags the Sinhala Only policy as one that divided our people, “a tragedy of Sri Lanka”.

Iranganie speaks of her childhood, her university years, the relationship she had with her father and her background in theatre. There is a wonderful moment in the conversation when she is surprised, after a brief pause, when I note that she is the last surviving actor of the first production at the Lionel Wendt in 1953, Maxim Gorky’s ‘The Lower Depths‘ produced by E. F. C. Ludowyk. In her inimitable style, she laments that at one stage, theatre was so bad in Sri Lanka that she stopped going for it, and that now, even though she loves theatre, her inability to drive around in the evenings makes it difficult for her to see productions.

We talk at length about Iranganie’s commitment to the preservation of the environment. She is a founding member of Ruk Rakaganno and there is another wonderful moment when she, with just a half sentence and glance, speaks volumes about the collapse of the rule of law in relation to the manner in which the environment is being placed at risk and degraded.

Finally we talk about Iranganie’s sources of inspiration, for her work in cinema in particular. She speaks of Flora Robson and her meeting with Sybil Thorndike.

But the real bombshell in the interview Iranganie saves for last, when she speaks of the incredible devastation of the environment in Hambantota (the electoral district of Mahinda Rajapaksa), where over 6,000 acres of forest land are earmarked to be cleared. It is a powerful lamentation and brings to a poignant end a conversation with someone who is a living treasure, a Sri Lankan of a mould we sadly do not find anymore. Iranganie truly is sui generis.

• Floating Spaces: Theatre and censorship in Sri Lanka
• Interview with Mohamed Adamaly: A life in English theatre
• The Travelling Circus on video: Looking at war and IDPs through theatre
• In conversation with Tracy Holsinger
• The Travelling Circus: A different take on IDPs in Sri Lanka

Environmentalists have gone to courts demanding that the road connecting Mannar and Puttalam that runs through the Wilpattu National Park be permanently closed. The opening of the old Mannar-Puttalam Road on January 24 2010 was seen as a crucial step in supporting the Northern IDP return process, especially for Muslims displaced from Mannar district. The Southern-most division of Mannar, Musali had the largest concentration of Northern Muslims and was the only Muslim majority division prior to the expulsion in 1990.

This road provides easy and low cost access from Puttalam to Musali in Southern Mannar as opposed to the other route that goes via Medawachchiya, which takes double the time (Puttalam- Medawachchiya – Marichchukadi 235km vs Puttalam – Wilpattu – Marichchukadi – 77km) and triple the cost, from Rs. 320 versus Rs. 100. Saving Rs. 220 per trip means a lot to the IDPs. For this cost, an IDP family struggling to have one meal a day can have an extra meal, especially after the destruction from the recent floods which also affected areas in mainland Mannar.

A women’s group has been accessing the road a few times since the time it was re-opened in January 2010. In a couple of visits, elderly women who had lived in the adjoining villages accompanied the members of the women’s group. These visits have helped us understand the importance of the road, especially from women’s perspectives, since the most impacted population of the road are women and children. Though the temporary closure of this road due to the rain in September 2010 put an end to such visits, the women’s group has sufficient information to demand the mobility right of the IDP women and their families. Some of the narratives and experiences of IDP women are highlighted below:

• It was the Muslims from Musali division in Mannar who started to return to their places of origin (Musali) from Puttalam, where they lived with an IDP status for more than two decades. This was made all the more possible because the Wilpattu road was reopened after about thirty years. The access to their places of origin via this road made it possible for them to return, with the belief that they have mobility between Puttalam and Musali. It was a historical moment for the women to be able to have mobility between the places that they are comfortable to move around and feel safe.
• Basic facilities like water, shelter, toilet, health and education are not available in the resettlement areas, including in the interior of Musali. Pregnant women and women with small children suffered the most to survive when they returned to their places of origins. Hence, return of the entire family is taking longer than expected with some family members, most often the men folk and also some women moving to resettlement areas while keeping their children in Puttalam as the educational facilities in the return areas is still being built up. Thus, the road became a crucial aspect of their lives in order to save the lives of their families and themselves. Spending Rs 220 more on a regular basis is certainly not something that they can afford, especially when their livelihoods have not been restored yet. Travelling by the longer route becomes impossible for a pregnant woman, especially if she is in her early or later months of pregnancy. Her right to mobility is denied with the closure of the road. Another concern is increasing snake-bites since the resettlement areas are infested with snakes and quick access to medical treatment for IDPs has been curtailed.
• Now that women’s mobility has been thwarted by the temporary closure of the road, women have become more dependent on the male members of their families. Women’s safety is once again at risk, given that most male members are away for a good number of days. Their lifestyles are totally destroyed. The traditional norms and gender roles are reinforced, in the form of women staying back at home to look after household work and only men have mobility and access to resources.
• Another aspect that affects the women the most is the unavailability of support structures, such as neighbours and relatives, in the resettled areas. For example, a single woman living with her children in the resettled area, earlier had support from her relatives living in Puttalam. They visited each other frequently when the road was still open. This is not possible anymore and the single women have been pushed, once against, to the most vulnerable category.

Wilpattu Park is a unique habitat for both fauna and flora, and needs to be protected. As people of the area we recognize its value. The destruction to this park has been caused by the armed forces not by the people. There have been new fences coming up and people have been told that such demarcated areas will be given for high-end tourism. It is poor peasants in the area who can monitor and report such land grabbing and abuses of resource. Complete closure of this road will intensify the damage to this natural habitat.

IDP women are not asking for a new highway to be built through the park- they are content to use the existing road. Women support the handing over of the administration of park to relevant wildlife authorities, with IDPs given access. Before the closure of this road in May 1985, people used this road while the guards appointed by the park authority and lately (after the break out of the civil war) military oversaw the use of this road by poor peasants of these areas.

What the northern Muslim IDP women are asking is restricted access like the one they had before. When the road was reopened in January 2010 to facilitate the Muslim IDPs return to Mannar mainland particularly to Musali DS division, there were many restrictions to protect the park (like the road was kept open for the public use only from 6.30am to 3.30pm and the speed limit was restricted to maximum 20km/h and every 100 yards there were navy and military personnel guarding the park standing by the side of the road.

With this, one wonders how the park is exploited or animals are harmed only by the IDPs?

###

The author is a Northern Muslim IDP and an activist.

• Where do they go from here?
• Forgotten IDPs from the North
• LLRC submission: The Citizens’ Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the North by the LTTE in October 1990
• 180 days after end of war, the much anticipated return of IDPs: An eyewitness account
• The Muslim question and resettlement of Muslim IDPs in post-war Sri Lanka: Two comprehensive interviews

An elephant census is not a simple activity.  Many of us would perceive that an elephant census would involve a large number of people going around counting elephants physically.  Although the elephant is a large animal, sightings can be quite difficult in many areas because of forest cover. Also by nature elephants are wary of humans and will retreat into denser habitat when approached.  So, counting elephants and making a census, is a much more complex procedure.

What is a Census?
Understanding animal abundance, distribution and movement patterns is a very important aspect of wildlife management.  Measuring abundance of animal populations essentially means census.  Most census methods require complex statistical treatment of the data. No doubt some simple techniques, with a minimum of statistical treatment, can yield useful results if undertaken with a clear understanding of assumptions and limitations.

However this proposed census by the DWLC is, according to reports, a comprehensive island–wide census, with a view of ascertaining the total population of wild elephants in Sri Lanka and their dispersion.  Hence this will certainly be a ‘full blown’ census which will be far more complex than a simple area based count to study abundance and movement trends.

Purpose of a Census
A census yields numerical information, like population estimates per area, information about relative abundance, or trends.  The adjectives “absent, rare, occasional, common, abundant” denote measures of relative abundance, but even this basic information is lacking for the Sri Lankan elephant. We do even not know the population numbers or dynamics in the national wild life parks. Most often it is efforts by private individuals that yield useful data and information. E.g. Dr Shermin de Silva and Ashoka Ranjeeva’s ongoing in-depth study of the Uda Walawe elephants, over several years now, is throwing out some very interesting information. Whereas originally it was thought that the population in the park was around 300-400, it now appears that the population is as high as 800-1100 during certain periods.

So it is no surprise that there is considerable controversy about the exact number of elephants in the wild in Sri Lanka.  Therefore, carrying out a full island-wide comprehensive census is a very important project, and vital to assess the wild elephant population for the purpose of future planning activities.

However, as indicated, an elephant census is a very complex procedure and therefore it must be carried out after proper planning and design, so as to arrive at accurate results.  Of course, however well planned, a census can never be able to give very accurate data, but, what is required is reliable population size with abundance and dispersion details.  If therefore a census is not done properly, all future planning will be based on erroneous data, which is even more serious, and therefore it would be better not undertake the census at all.

Techniques
There are several well established techniques that are utilized in undertaking a census.  Basically there are two types of techniques – Direct and Indirect methods.

Direct Sighting Method
This involves visibly searching for, and counting the animals in a relatively high density habitat.  This method is utilized for larger animals such as the elephants, provided the habitat is conducive for direct sighting. A large number of volunteers are utilized to systematically cover areas and undertake the count.

Total Counts
In a total counting, the entire area under surveillance is searched, and all elephants sighted are counted.  A disadvantage of this method is that it cannot account for errors (such as double counting), especially when the census is spread over several days.  This method would not be preferred for large areas where there are different terrains and habitats.  Much more resources will be called for, which often makes the entire exercise prohibitively expensive. Hence this method, on its own, will not be practically applicable for an island wide census of elephants in Sri Lanka.

Pic: Srilal Miththapala

Sampling
The alternative is to count in a part of the area only, by conducting a number of sample counts.  The cumulative sample counts can then be extrapolated to cover the entire area to estimate the total population. However, such sample counts have to be skillfully and scientifically planned and conducted, supported by good statistical analysis, if it is going to provide good and accurate data. The crucial assumption in sampling is that the individual sampling areas should be representative of the entire area being sampled.

Pic: Srilal Miththapala

Block Counting
As opposed to sampling counts, in a block count, observers, move through a selected area or block in a pre-determined pattern assuming that all elephants within this block can be seen, and thus double counting avoided.

The entire area under investigation is first divided up into the counting blocks. The total number of elephants in this area can then be ascertained by either counting all blocks or adding the figures together (i.e. total count) or the more preferred method of estimating from the figures obtained, by counting proportions of blocks only (sample).

Transects
Similar to the block concept, in this case transects or specific routes are used, around which the elephants are counted when sighted.   The transects can be fixed width, (useful in open grasslands or scrub jungle where there is adequate lateral visibility) where sightings within a particular distance from the transect is only counted. On the other hand, open width transects involves counting of all sighted elephants, regardless of sighting distance. Obviously each of these techniques will need to supported with relevant mathematical models.

Indirect methods
In cases where density is low, or habitat visibility is poor, an indirect method of assessing numbers must be resorted to. This means that as opposed to direct sightings, some other parameter or signs are used to assess the number of animals in a given area. In the case of elephants the most popular and effective indirect method of assessment is dung counts.

Elephants eat a large quantity of vegetation (some 200 kgs a day) and have a relatively poor digestion system ( only some 40% is processed in the stomach). Consequently elephants defecate some 6-8 times a day, leaving behind a trail of large boluses of dung. To scientists’ these dung piles are a storehouse of information. Apart from the more obvious DNA information and health of the animal, it can also give an indication of the elephant movement patterns and abundance.

Pic: Srilal Miththapala

Therefore in theory it is possible to estimate population size from dung counts, if we know defecation rates and rate of decomposition of the dung.  Sample blocks are planned out, and all dung found within that block is counted, and composition and status (how big, how old etc.) noted, from which, using mathematical techniques and proper assumptions, population estimates are arrived at.  In practice this is not easy to establish reliably, and this method is not recommended for total population estimation.  It is more preferred for analysis of trends.

General requirements of a census
The optimum time to carry out the census should be decided when the elephants will be accessible better.  Normally, the height of the dry season is best, because the elephants during this period elephants would access water holes.  On the other hand if it is a wildlife park, high tourist seasons would be best excluded when conducting the census.

Given the current distribution pattern of Sri Lankan elephants in the wild, perhaps a combination of direct and indirect counting should be carried out.  In some of the wildlife parks where visibility is good, elephants are relatively more accustomed to people, where perhaps direct counting procedures may be suitable.  However, there will be vast areas where indirect methods will have to be used.  Also August, when the census is to be conducted, is the dry season in the North-Eastern region, where there is greater elephant abundance, which perhaps is good timing.

Staffing
Whatever techniques or methods are used, a census of the entire island would require sufficient trained and dependable staff.  A properly planned organizational structure will have to be put in place, with separate teams to work under team leaders.  Needless to say the entire team must be well accounted with techniques going to be used.

Logistics
During the period of census, there will have to be a major logistics programme in place, to provide the very large number of resource personnel out in the field with adequate food, water, transport and other resources.  Effective communication systems have to be set up, with regional and central command centers, to coordinate activities and for collecting of data.  After the actual census, considerable collation and analysis of the data will have to be carried out, before a final conclusion can be arrived at.

Past data and information about elephant ranging and abundance should be taken into account when planning out the sample areas to be counted. Given the scarcity of such information (except once again the work done by individual researchers such as Dr Prithiviraj Fernando and Dr Devaka Weerakoon) this will be a daunting task

In the case of Sri Lanka, definitely some areas will have to be counted under sampling techniques and careful planning and expert input will have to be obtained. In addition analysis of the information, post count, is also very vital.  Proper standard deviations, error factors and confidence limits, plus sampling size will have to be carefully calculated and decided on.

It is important therefore that the DWLC engage as many experts into the planning process. There is a wealth of knowledge in the hands of private individuals, who are really the only ones carrying out whatever elephant research that is going on in Sri Lanka.

No amount of theoretical knowledge will of course ever substitute for real-life, field experience in planning and executing such a complex and large scale project. And it is a well-known fact that only a very few elephant censuses have been conducted in Sri Lanka, and many of the results arrived at, has been, in fact, questionable. So there is no question that local field experience is quite limited in this area. Therefore we should obtain suitable expertise from abroad, the best being from India, where conditions would be very similar to Sri Lanka.

If all these precautions are taken, with proper and extensive planning, backed by good scientific support, both public and private, then the proposed  elephant census  would be one of the most important interventions undertaken by the DWLC in the recent past, that would help planning of  future wild life management strategies.

More importantly it can set the stage for a healthy private-public sector partnership, which will be of great significance and importance towards addressing the complex human elephant conflict.

###

The writer is a senior tourism professional, and was the former Chief Executive Officer of Serendib Leisure Management Ltd and immediate past President of the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL). He  also served on the board of the Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism & Hospitality Management. He is now attached to the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce as Project Director of the Greening Hotels SWITCH ASIA project. He is a keen  Environmentalist  and  Wildlife Enthusiast

• Humans vs. elephants: Sri Lanka’s tragic on-going conflict
• The persuasive power of numbers and the mystery “8.5%” figure
• Surveys with conflicting outcomes
• Unshed Tears
• Reading election polls: To be misled or to be empowered?

18 May 2010: Colombo, Sri Lanka: The unusually heavy rain and storm activity over Sri Lanka during the past few days could be the result of another international conspiracy against the resurgent island, a citizens’ science group says.

“The timing and intensity of the inclement weather is too much of a coincidence, just when we were preparing to celebrate our armed forces’ great victory over the LTTE exactly one year ago,” said the Vidyartha Patriots’ Institute for Science and Society (VPISS).

They added: “We suspect that a foreign hand, possibly a western country, may have tampered with our seasonal rainfall patterns. We ask the government to investigate if this could be the case.”

While the south-west Monsoon rains are typically expected to commence in mid May over the western and southern areas of Sri Lanka, the intensity of the rain has surprised even experienced meteorologists. The Department of Meteorology said on 17 May that a storm was developing over Sri Lanka.

The Victory Day celebration scheduled to be held at Galle Face Colombo on 20 May has been postponed owing to the unfavourable weather conditions, the Media Centre for National Security announced on the same day.

Pre monsoon rain, triggered by a stormy conditions in the Bay of Bengal, wrought havoc yesterday in Colombo, Gampaha, Panadura,  Ratnapura and Galle. The news media reported it has displaced over 30,000 families while two people were reported dead and three others missing.

Meanwhile, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said that around 50,000 families in Colombo, 15,000 in Gampaha and 14,000 families in Kalutara were affected by the torrential rains that lashed through these areas for several hours on May 17.

A number of main streets in and around Colombo were flooded by accumulated rain waters, which overwhelmed the drainage systems. Parts of northern Colombo have been without electricity due to power distribution sub-stations being flooded.

Dr Anura Punchi-darshana, convenor of VPISS, urged all patriotic Sri Lankans to be alert and vigilant over sinister attempts to undermine the country’s attempts to rebuild the nation after the long-drawn conflict.

“We remember very well how so many vested interests and geopolitical agendas prolonged our anti-terrorist struggle,” Dr Punchi-darshana said. “These foreign elements don’t want to see Sri Lanka emerge as the next wonder of Asia. They will continue their unholy attempts to destabilize our island using whatever means. This could include unleashing rain-making forces that are long suspected to have been secretly developed by powerful western nations.”

Dr Susan Agunathilaka, a co-founder of VPISS, questioned the wisdom of relying on two annual monsoons for most of Sri Lanka’s rainfall and water resources.

In her view, the origins of the very word ‘monsoon’ should be grounds for concern. Monsoon comes from the Portuguese word monção, which was derived from Arabic mawsim (meaning “season”). Some say this was perhaps partly via early modern Dutch word monsun.

“From our history we know how the Arabs, Portuguese and Dutch have all interfered in the peaceful affairs of our island nation,” Dr Agunathilaka opined. “We should know better than to trust anything like the Monsoon that comes with so much of historical baggage!”

Dr Anura Punchi-darshana goes even further, and proposes that the government should decline the foreign interventionist weather forces called the Monsoon.

“We must stop relying on this foreign rain, and aspire to generate all the rain ourselves,” he urged. “We who hail from a long and proud hydraulic civilization can surely manage this much in the 21st Century!”

VPISS is a little known group that established a decade ago by a group of expatriate Sri Lankan scientists and engineers in New York. Some of its co-founders have since returned to Sri Lanka and offered their services to the government to rebuild the war-ravaged nation.

In June 2009, Banyan News exclusively reported how genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes may have been released in the Greater Colombo by an irate multinational pharmaceutical company that failed to win a health supply contract.

• Satellite View
• First images: The flooding in Menik Camp and the increasingly dire situation for IDPs
• Breaking news: Flooding and unrest again at Menik Farm?
• UPDATE: Google Map on Flood-affected areas in Sri Lanka
• Focus on Badulla: Landslides

Renton de Alwis was one time Chairman for Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau. As noted on this website, he has over 35 years experience in marketing, communications and tourism related areas, having worked in an international environment covering over 30 countries.

In this interview we talk about the future of tourism in Sri Lanka. Renton comes out strongly in favour of the greening of Sri Lanka and eco-tourism in line with our traditions and culture. I asked him about the Akon incident, but he said he didn’t know enough to comment. After speaking at length about the environment, Renton in the last minutes of the interview went on to ardently support the commercial use of land in Kalpitiya, owned by the State, for tourism purposes. He noted that the best use for this land would be to turn it into a gambling centre, modelled on the lines of Macau. Details about the proposed developments in Kalpitiya can be found on the web fairly easily. What cannot be found as readily are very serious concerns that environmentalists and conservationists have about this development in the region, and the resulting impact on ecosystems and livelihoods.

Deshan Tennekoon is one of Sri Lanka’s best photographers. Titled The Lagoon, the Islands and the Sea, a recent lecture of his at the Fulbright Commission in Colombo, along with Devaka Seneviratne, was on Kalpitiya. As Deshan notes on his blog,

The lives centered on the lagoon and the many marine species of the area are special to the Kalpitiya peninsula. The advent of the Kalpitiya development plan, the impending construction of countless hotels, an airstrip and underwater parks will change irrevocably, these unique natural spaces. This is an attempt to document the rare beauty of an environment and a way of life, while they still exist.

Readers are invited to engage with Renton’s vision for the development of tourism in Sri Lanka, and the controversial notes he ends this conversation on.

• Colombo night races: Racy development in post-war Sri Lanka
• Marketing a troubled land: War, peace and tourism in Sri Lanka
• Images from a flooded capital
• Party
• Minister of what?????

The venomous response of Devendra in the Island of 16^th March does not merit a reply but I need to set the record straight. As I said in my original entry, “The primary fault is with neither the visitors nor the locals” which is very different to what Devendra seeks to imply. He takes offence over my citing the critical observations of a very distinguished Sinhalese. Rebuilding Sri Lanka requires self-critical acknowledgement of the damage done to the Sri Lankan nation over the decades by the racist policies of Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim leaders and by insensitive conduct and practices. It also requires a willingness to engage in corrective action. The corrective action includes not only political reforms but also sensitizing the population and lowering the barriers to inter ethnic communication. The barriers erected by the LTTE to prevent other citizens from traveling to areas controlled by them have disappeared together with the LTTE; several of the barriers erected by the state remain, and new barriers have been erected. Citizens cannot now freely travel to certain areas. New High Security Zones have been created. Tens of thousands of citizens, mostly Tamils and Muslims, cannot even visit their own homes or their own lands in the old or new no go areas.

A week ago I had an opportunity to visit, along with some others, Jaffna and Chavakachcheri. We took the opportunity to call on Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian religious and community leaders, as well as the Government Agent. We found time to visit the markets in those two cities. This visit gave me an opportunity to make first hand observations.

As expected, I found that the reaction of the local population to the surge of Southern visitors was mixed. The scale of the flow of visitors to Jaffna was in excess of the local capacity to accommodate it. That capacity is gradually increasing through new construction work and through expansion of the markets and production. In the long run this development will bring socio-economic gains to Jaffna, but in the meantime there are ill effects such as those referred to by the person I cited. Moreover the prices of many essential items in the market have escalated. Accommodation is in short supply and often prohibitively expensive. These impact negatively on the local consumers, and on IDPs   visiting Jaffna to look at their property or returning to resettle. Some of the reactions are not very different to those of the locals in tourist locations elsewhere in response to any surge of tourists not sensitive to the local culture. They may feel marginalized by the tourists and priced out of the local markets. On the other hand those running guest houses and the traders are delighted. These reactions too are similar to those running guest houses and shops in centres of tourism.

Devendra’s reference to the local Tamil population as “subjects” is indicative of the problem, as also his cynical dismissal of earlier peace making efforts. We need to promote more in – tourism but in such a way that it promotes inter – ethnic harmony. If this is done in sensitive manner Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims in the private sectors will extend their operations to every part of the Island, and every district in the island will become ethnically and culturally more plural. As Devendra should have learnt from the reaction of his Tamil and Muslim “subjects” in Trincomalee, state imposed colonization could be counter productive but if population movements occur without state imposition they would be welcome by the locals. In particular, those evicted earlier from a locality or who left on account of insecurity would be most warmly accepted back. The flow of Sinhalese visitors to Jaffna needs to be sustained but in such a manner that their interaction with the locals is harmonious. This was one of the messages underlined by all the religious and other civil society leaders we met in Jaffna a week ago.

• Rebuilding Sri Lanka
• Longing and Belonging series: From London to Jaffna for the first time
• The Tamil Population and the Politics of Boycotts and Non Participation
• Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) on whether the LTTE is really finished and the war over in Sri Lanka
• Articulating the Concerns of Ethnic Minorities in Relation to Constitutional Proposals

Piyal Parakrama on Sri Lanka 2048 TV show

Piyal Parakrama’s smile was regular and genuine, but it could be also be a bit misleading. Those who engaged him found that there was a keen mind, passionate heart and a sharp (yet always courteous) tongue behind that disarming smile. Opponents dismissed him lightly at their peril.

In public and media debates, Piyal could float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. That flutter and buzz are now abruptly silenced with his sudden death on March 3 at age 49. Another public spirited player has left the stage all too soon.

Piyal combined the roles of environmentalist, educator, researcher and media personality. He wasn’t part of the Colombo elite dabbling in a bit of green activism (mostly concerning wildlife or garbage) in their spare time. Instead, he straddled the parallel worlds of grassroots reality and the often ephemeral preoccupations of Colombo.

Not many knew him in formal capacities as the Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental and Nature Studies, or as founder president of the Nature Conservation Group, or as a consultant to various state and academic institutions. Some might remember his work at the now-defunct Sri Lanka Environment Congress (SLEC) that networked the country’s green groups. These various labels and ‘hats’ don’t really matter when assessing his overall contribution to the conservation movement. Piyal Parakrama was his own distinctive brand — admired, trusted or feared by different sections of society.

Piyal had emerged as a prominent member of what the late Ajith Samaranayake called Sri Lanka’s post-1956 generation: Sinhala-educated, with a high degree of political consciousness and deeply immersed in the art and culture of their times. How tragic, then, that Piyal should depart hastily – just like Ajith himself did, three years ago – when the children of 1956 are consolidating themselves in our politics, arts and commerce.

Given our common interests in development issues and the media, Piyal and I moved in partly overlapping circles. Our paths crossed frequently, and we shared public platforms, newspaper space and broadcast airtime. We even worked together for a few months in the late 1990s at the Sri Lanka Environmental Television Project. His communications skills were invaluable in rendering a number of international environmental films into Sinhala. More than a dozen years later, some are still in circulation.

We didn’t always agree. Sometimes we argued furiously over issues that we both cared deeply about but analysed differently. I felt he was too idealistic in his visions of reviving natural resource management practices of the past. Everyone is entitled to their bit of romanticism, for sure, but when advocating policy reforms or behaviour change, we need to root our positions on more realistic ground.

L to R – Nalaka Gunawardene, Mark Harvey (Internews) & Piyal Parakrama in Nepal, Oct 1996

Biodiversity

For example, Piyal passionately believed that Sri Lanka must go back to being an agriculture-dominated economy. (In 2008, agriculture’s contribution to the national GDP was a mere 12.1 per cent.) But unlike those who look back at 25 centuries of history in wistful nostalgia and try to revive times irretrievably lost, he rationalised his position. In a media interview given days after Sri Lanka’s long-drawn civil war ended, he explained his vision based on a ‘natural resource account’ for the country: “This is just like running a private company where it operates within the available resources, unlike the government which lives beyond its means.”
In that same interview, he underlined the need to develop agriculture in the North which was once very productive and grew a fifth of Sri Lanka’s food. He added: “We need to promote agro-eco tourism. We need to promote a tourism that will not ruin the environment and take away the little resources we have.”

Piyal’s forte was biodiversity – the collective term for all plants, animals (wild and domesticated) and their various habitats from forests and mountains to the coasts and oceans. His interest and knowledge were nurtured first at the Young Zoologists Association – where he remained a volunteer for 30 years – and later at the Lumumba Friendship University in Russia, where he studied biology from 1983 to 1986.

During the past three decades, Piyal and fellow activists have taken up the formidable challenges of conserving Sri Lanka’s biodiversity, long under multiple pressures such as growing human numbers, rising human aspirations, and gaps in law enforcement. Adding to the sense of urgency was the 1999 designation of Sri Lanka as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, where high levels of endemic species (found nowhere else in the wild) were threatened with extinction. Public and media attention is disproportionately focused on a few charismatic mega-fauna like elephants and leopards; in reality, dozens of other animal and plant species are being edged out.

In search of viable solutions for entrenched conservation problems, Piyal collaborated with scientists, educators, journalists and grassroots activists. Some industrialists and investors hated his guts, but he was much sought after by schools, universities and community groups across the country. Concerned researchers and government officials sometimes gave him sensitive information which he could make public in ways they couldn’t.

Some eco-protests grew into sustained campaigns. Among them were the call to save the Buona-Vista reef at Rumassala and struggles against large scale sugarcane plantations in Bibile. A current campaign focuses on the Iran-funded Uma Oya multipurpose project, which involves damming a river for irrigation and power generation purposes.

While environmentalists ultimately haven’t block development projects, their agitations helped increase environmental and public health safeguards. Occasionally, projects were moved to less damaging locations – as happened in mid 2008, when Sri Lanka’s second international airport was moved away from Weerawila, next to the Bundala National Park.

Political flirtations

The hard truth, however, is that our green activists have lost more struggles than they have won since the economy was liberalized in 1977. They have not been able to stand up to the all-powerful executive presidency, ruling the country since 1978 — most of that time under Emergency regulations. In that period, we have had ‘green’ and ‘blue’ parties in office, sometimes in coalitions with the ‘reds’. But their environmental record is, at best, patchy. In many cases, local or foreign investors — acting with the backing of local politicians and officials — have bulldozed their way on promises of more jobs and incomes. Environmentalists have sometimes been maligned as anti-development or anti-people. In contemporary Sri Lanka, that’s just one step away from being labeled anti-national or anti-government.

Piyal was astute enough to know the limits of knowledge-based advocacy and grassroots agitation in Sri Lanka. Maybe that’s why he also flirted with party politics. He was the founding president of the Green Party of Sri Lanka, a duly registered (even if little known) political party.

It was started to address systemic and structural reforms needed to place Sri Lanka on a more sustainable and equitable path of economic development. The founders wanted to promote concepts such as the ecological footprint and environmental justice. But in our tribal political culture, issue-based political advocacy can only go so far. I have no idea where the Green Party stands on key issues of the day, or whether it retains its original green character today.

While Piyal’s loyalty to the larger environmental or social causes was never in question, I sometimes wondered about the company he kept. A case in point was the Patriotic National Movement, a motley collection of Sinhala nationalists, west-bashers and conspiracy theorists. I’m not sure if that was due to simple pragmatism or deep conviction – we chose not to debate politics in our encounters.

One point where we had total agreement was on the power of mass media to inform and influence public opinion. He tapped every kind of mass media to reach as many people as possible in the shortest possible time. He was a regular contributor to newspapers and a popular guest on radio and TV talk shows.

He was also a trusted source of news and opinions for many journalists.

The last time we collaborated was in such a media venture. In mid 2008, Piyal joined an hour-long TV debate we produced as part of the Sri Lanka 2048 series. The show discussed the various choices and trade-offs that had to be made today to create a more sustainable Sri Lanka over the next 40 years. Piyal could speak authoritatively on several topics we covered in the 10-part series, but I invited him to the debate on managing freshwater. With his deep knowledge of traditional water and soil conservation systems, he was truly in his element there.

High and low shrill

I was always impressed (and even envious) of his command of Sinhala: his was a friendly style, informed and idiomatic without being excessively technocratic or legalistic. Piyal could deliver a coherent ‘sound bite’ to be used by a broadcast journalist, and also speak at length on the same topic. Not many activists or academics can manage this feat.

Another of his skills was what I call the variable shrill: ability to increase or tone down the amount of rhetoric to suit the occasion. Whenever he joined a public event or TV debate that I moderated, Piyal heeded my request for a low-shrill, high-substance contribution. (I’m all for plurality of views, but believe that rhetoric – like spices – is best taken in moderate quantities.)

Activism is not an easy path anywhere, anytime, and especially so in modern day Sri Lanka. All activists – whether working on democracy, governance, social justice or environment – are struggling to reorient themselves in the post-conflict, middle-income country they suddenly find themselves in. Their old rhetoric and strategies no longer seem to motivate the people or influence either the polity or policy. Many of them haven’t yet crossed the Other Digital Divide, and risk being left behind by the march of technology.

Don’t get me wrong. I salute every activist who comes forward to champion the public interest on behalf of a (mostly) passive and apathetic public. Most Lankans are either contented with the status quo, or just too preoccupied with their daily survival, to worry about the bigger picture. Activists work like the proverbial elves while the rest of us take it easy.

As indeed Piyal did, all his adult life, with few material rewards. He had no illusions about the hardships of his chosen career path. He also walked the talk, living frugally and treading very lightly on the earth. To his credit, he never abandoned the good struggle or sacrificed it all to become yet another presidential advisor…

Piyal heeded Anita Roddick’s advice to fellow activists worldwide: take it personally. Perhaps he took it too personally. Sitting next to Piyal’s silent body last week, his mother told me that he had no major worries or regrets in his life, and I want to believe her. But I also know there is little respite for those who care too deeply about the public commons and the common good.

We have been warned.

~

Science writer Nalaka Gunawardene dreams of becoming an activist one day, but for now, he remains a ‘critical cheer-leader’ of those who are more courageous. He blogs on media, society and development at http://movingimages.wordpress.com

• Humans vs. elephants: Sri Lanka’s tragic on-going conflict
• Falling from grace: On Sripathi’s demise and using terror against terror
• Subsidizing Addiction?
• GM Mosquitoes Unleashed in Sri Lanka? Multinational Company’s Involvement Suspected
• Colombo night races: Racy development in post-war Sri Lanka

“It is reported that the people of the North, especially in the Jaffna district, have developed a feeling of dissatisfaction, disaffection and contempt towards the people of the South, who post the end of the war are now engaging in pilgrimage and sightseeing related visits to the North in large numbers, and in the process totally disregarding the need for privacy, encroaching on meagre infrastructure resources and services of the district, causing significant negative impact on the environment/cleanliness and pollution in the area, and behaving in a manner unacceptable by the cultural and religious values of the Northerners.

These negative feelings are expressed in relation to the following issues highlighted in support of the claim;

1. Large and unrestricted numbers of pilgrims are traveling from the South to the Jaffna District especially to visit Naghadhipa, Nallur Kovil, Madhu Church and other places of religious worship and there are no adequate infrastructure facilities for this level of inflow

2. Following the pilgrimage these visitors engage in sightseeing and visit war damaged areas, IDP resettlement areas and places of religious and cultural heritage of the Northerners

3. During the sightseeing tours visitors do not effectively engage with the people of the area, do not respect their need for privacy nor empathise with their present status and enquire and try to extend any help or even express feelings of solidarity as citizens of one nation in brotherhood. They state and look at them in a manner that they feel that they were once captives of the Terror groups, then displaced persons and now destitute looked on by their southern citizens as animals in a cage or helpless people in a hopeless state. These feelings are heightened as the people in the North do not see their plight, lifestyles and challenges of life and livelihoods are shared by the southern brothers and sisters.

4. Large numbers use Duraiappa Stadium and areas in the vicinity and these areas are not capable of providing the necessary housing, waste, sanitation, garbage clearance facilities to the present level of visitors and therefore they use open areas and their resting areas for washing, toilets, cooking and leave the areas totally polluted with garbage, polythene, waste and toilet waste causing great inconvenience to residents

5. These pilgrims indiscriminately use the water and other resources of nearby temples, kovils and Churches and use water for washing, cleaning after toilet use etc without consideration of the cultural and religious values and use of these premises and the state they leave behind after use with no concern for residents who use the same facilities thereafter

6. Visitors who are not actual worshipers crowd temples/kovils during poojah time and crowd out actual users and disturb the sanctity and value of the poojahs

7. These pilgrims use religious places and culturally significant places like the Jaffna Library disrespectfully ( in shoes) and use it for lying down, relaxing and entertainment including some times for consumption of alcohol

8. High Ace Vans are sometimes parked in front of Kovils and other places of cultural significance and visitors have food and at times alcohol and dancing with blaring music disrespecting the places of worship and cultural values

9. Ladies and Young Girls on bicycles are subjected to harassment, whistling, hooting and negative comments by visitors

10. Insensitive behaviours all round by not recognizing and aligning with the the socio-cultural values of Northerners.”

I have not been to the North post war, but vividly remember my post cease fire (2002) visits to Jaffna, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee where I encountered scenes and reactions very different to those described above. Those scenes were of the joyful mingling on equal terms of thousands of visitors and locals. Now, it appears, the meetings are of the victims and the vanquished. The primary fault is with neither the visitors nor the locals but with the manner in which the end of the war was treated by the national leadership and the media. The atmosphere of triumphalism, yet prevailing, is deeply damaging to inter ethnic harmony and to the prospects of healing wounds and reconstructing the Sri Lankan nation. There is much physical construction work but the locals remain disempowered and marginalized.

Under Apartheid, South Africa had been burdened with incomparably greater inter-ethnic hostilities and institutionalized racism and oppression than Sri Lanka ever was. But with the inspired leadership of Mandela, Tutu, and the others, they successfully dislodged those burdens in a manner that few predicted, and achieved a level of success that seemed impossible. Leadership of that quality may not appear anywhere on our planet for decades to come, but can we in Sri Lanka not find ways to bridge our much more modest but yet widening ethnic divides? We surely can, though, sadly, we see very little of even acknowledgement of the problem, still less of meaningful steps to address it. Our problems today are of our own creation and not of meddlesome foreigners or of the Diaspora or of the LTTE, dead since mid May 2009.

• A Reply to Tissa Devendra on Rebuilding Sri Lanka
• Daily Security Report from UN – The plight of the North & East
• Cutting off telecoms in Sri Lanka redux…
• Jaffna after the war: Observations by a visitor
• Rambling in Jaffna: An ode to the past