Microplastic Pollution: A Silent Killer in the Making
I was only a few years old when Sri Lanka opened its economy in the late 70s. The influx of plastics into the island was among the few visible changes I remember…
Environment
Human-Elephant Conflict Continues Unchecked
There are less than 500,000 wild elephants in the world. These comprise of just three families, the African Bush (Savannah) Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant; all are classified…
Macaque Havoc
The narrow, winding road at Kadugannawa is littered with small roadside shops selling corn, grapefruit and the local favourite polos and roti, coconut flatbread with a side of baby jackfruit curry. We…
Saving the Leopard from Slipping into Extinction
In 2021, the Wildlife & Nature Protection Society (WNPS), Sri Lanka’s oldest such organisation (the third in the world), with the aid of the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), persuaded the government…
Beating the Plastic Menace
Increased deforestation, greenhouse gas emission, coal mining, chemical waste and solid waste mismanagement are some of the grave global environmental issues faced at present. The government’s initiative to establish a Climate Change…
Arming Farmers is Not the Answer to the Human-Elephant Conflict
Policymakers cursed with a lack of original thinking, especially with the possibility of elections in the offing, resort to knee jerk reactions to long standing problems rather than seek informed advice and…
Don’t Blame the Monkeys
Animal rights activists and conservationists are up in arms about a plan to send 100,000 toque macaque monkeys to China on the request of a private Chinese firm. The government says the…
Wind Farms : The Death of Mannar
How can the most ambitious renewable power project in Sri Lanka have this many detrimental impacts on the environment and the local communities of Mannar? Thambapawani, a derivation of the name after…
Saving Forests with Corporate and Public Responsibility
We know this and we know that despite all of their expressed concerns and intentions that the policymakers have little thought of doing much to reverse this trend. Rather than bemoan this…
Short Sighted Policies Destroying Sri Lanka’s Wildlife
In February 2023, the prestigious Forbes magazine proclaimed Sri Lanka as having the Top Wildlife Safaris Outside of Africa for the year 2023. “The nation has one of the planet’s densest populations…
Deep Jungle Fever: A Symptom of a Greater Malady
The traditional conservation laws and policies of Sri Lanka are largely not working. If they were there would not be so much unrestrained destruction of wildlife and forests. These pieces of legislation…
Conservation: Reaching a Point of No Return
Last year, Covid dominated all conversations and contributed to the further exacerbation of a multitude of existing man-made environmental and conservation disasters. “Sadly, conservation management decisions seem now to be made at…
Vital Northern Mangroves Need Uncompromising Protection
Tashiya de Mel On the northern coast of Sri Lanka in the Mannar District is a place of extraordinary importance to conservation and to the economic wellbeing of the human populations who…
Critical Zone: In Search of New Aesthetics
We are living in a critical zone. Have you ever thought of the critical nature of the zone that we live? Probably not; we take the earth that we live on for…
Converting Conflict into Coexistence Between Humans and Elephants
Photo courtesy of Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne The situation of Asian elephants, Sri Lankan elephants in particular, is critical due to the increase in human-elephant conflicts. Even before the current economic crisis, Human-Elephant…
