By Mario Andree
While the month of September has been named as the month for nature and wild life to promote Sri Lanka as an all-round tourism destination, but the industry fears that certain development activities could pose threats to the country’s valuable flora and fauna.
The Tourism Ministry in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators have organized several seminars for September to educate the public about the importance of promoting Sri Lanka as a safari destination.
Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Managing Director Rumy Jauffer told the press yesterday (22) that the Tourism Ministry had taken measures to investigate the land clearing in several areas without a proper Environmental Impact Assessment, but refused to elaborate further.
He said the development activities taking place around the country had not posed an immediate threat to the wild life so far, but was expected to have an impact if not managed.
Eco Team Sri Lanka Managing Director Anuruddha Bandara said that inbound tour operators were not seeing the development taking place as a threat at the moment. "However there would be some impact after the completion of these projects," he said.
A senior tour operator told The Island Financial Review that the Hambantota port development project and other port development activities around the country, would cause a threat to the whale colony sited in the oceans surrounding Sri Lanka.
"After the port development was completed and shipping routes shift it would pose a threat to the whale colony and we might lose a valuable natural asset," the source said.
Tourism Ministry Chairman Dr. Nalaka Godahewa had told a recent seminar that "although the people abandoned the country at time of war the whale colony did not leave, having hoped that there would soon be peace".
The tour operator, not wanting to be named, said the elephants in the country also are in danger as their numbers have declined from 12,000 from a few years ago to 4,000 now, and elephant gatherings are one of the major tourism attractions in the country, being ranked as the 6th largest in the world by the ‘Lonely Planet’ magazine.
He said these were cases which need to be lobbied with the government, but the tour operators did not want to go through the unnecessary hassle, which was why they were keeping silent.
Sri Lanka hopes to attract more than 2.5 million tourists by 2015 leading to five million in 2020, thereby helping the revenue generated to grow tenfold.
Tourist arrivals for the first seven months of this year increased 26.5 percent to 465,324 from 341,991 a year ago.
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