The Value of Forests
This is a callout to Sri Lankans who have enjoyed our forests. If you have ever spread your picnic lunch in the soft shade of a roadside forest or gazed out from…
Environment
The Colombo Declaration
Image Samya Arif/Medium Read the full article on The Hindu. Click here to access the full text of the Colombo Declaration, an excerpt of which is below: Whereas on the occasion of…
Killing Elephants in Sri Lanka
Photo courtesy Killing elephants with shotguns is very inefficient. The clusters of tiny, iron pellets rarely kill such large animals instantly. Instead, pellets lodge in tissue and cartilage, causing wounds that ooze…
The ecology of an issue: ‘Save Wilpattu’ on Facebook and Twitter
When over the weekend, senior journalist Amantha Perera sent a link to a post on Facebook asking if it was one that was popular, the answer took me into a brief study…
Killing Tuskers and Culling Hopes
“I just passed a polling place and it’s crowded. There’s no parking… There’s an electricity. It’s exciting.”[i] That was American activist Lecia Brooks (of the Southern Poverty Law Centre), referring to the…
The Human-Elephant Conflict: Moving Towards Solutions
Recently the famous tusker, “Dala Puttuwa” of Galgamuwa was killed by poachers, renewing the public discussion around the ongoing human -elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. Investigators found that Dala Puttuwa was killed…
Conserving Yala: An Alternative Approach
Image courtesy Much has been written and said about Block One of Yala National Park and its over-visitation, causing disturbance and danger to wildlife, thus jeopardizing conservation. The latest decision to cap…
The Waiting Earth: Communities and cultivators affected by Sri Lanka’s drought
At the time of writing, 488,277 families and 1,665,961 individuals are affected by the on-going drought in Sri Lanka. The country’s rice harvest has been halved, the worst on record in 40…
The Dark Side of Norochcholai
The term “sustainable development” has been increasingly used among the global community since the 1992 Rio Summit. To achieve this, environmental conservation, supported at a policy level, is crucial. Yet energy production…
Deduru Oya and Good Governance At Risk
Environmental issues have become a central concern of policy makers, with many international conventions ratified by the global community. However, if we want to protect the environment on a global scale, individual…
The world’s first EleFriendly bus: A success story
The world’s first EleFriendly bus celebrated its first birthday on September 9th, 2017 in the Wasgamuwa area. I was lucky to be able to attend the event. The EleFriendly bus is an…
Blue Sky Mining
“We are aware of the great difference in carbon dioxide that is emitted from biological sources and carbon dioxide emitted from fossil sources. One has sequestered rates measured in thousands of years…
Desertification of Jaffna and Jojoba
This is in reference to Dr.Rohan Wickramasinghe’s valuable and interesting article of Tuesday 6th June. The desertification process in Jaffna has been detected and analysed for over half a century and the…
In support of community dogs in Sri Lanka
In response to recent threats made by government officials who want to remove all dogs from the streets within the next three months, a peaceful vigil was held May 6th 2017 in…
Where Has All the Water Gone?
MANILA – We live on a parched planet. Farmers till arid pastureland, and policymakers fret over empty reservoirs, dry rivers, and thirsty cities. And that only scratches the surface – literally –…
