By Ifham Nizam
Despite Sri Lanka being a biodiversity hotspot along with the Western Ghats in India, natural resources in the country were often misused by a few to gain a quick buck, causing a loss of millions of rupees to the government.
Environment Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa says felling is taking place despite strict laws. However, he believes with the support from the grassroots and villages, authorities could put end to the menace.
Sri Lanka lost nearly Rs. 70 million due to thousands of forest related offences that had taken place in 2010, a report prepared by the Environment Ministry revealed yesterday (26).
A senior official of the ministry told The Island Financial Review yesterday that 3,324 forest related offences had been reported in 2010.
The Ministry had recorded 1,183 offences of illicit encroachment and clearing of forests.
Among the other offences included 726 cases of illegal felling, and 179 cases of illicit transportation of timber.
According to Yapa, the largest number of timber felling cases amounting to 154 had been recorded in Nuwara Eliya district.
Anuradhapura had recorded the most cases of illicit encroachment and clearing with 246 cases.
Meanwhile, the mMinistry had also uncovered some 400 unauthorized timber depots in 2010. The Island Financial Review learns that these depots were instructed that they would be dealt with unless they followed the proper legal channels.
Loss of biodiversity is a crisis that threatens human beings. The earth’s biodiversity is crucial to human well-being because it has important functions, scientists have been reiterating.
It provides us commodities such as food, fresh water and fuel, and carries out regulating functions such as climate and disease regulation and water purification. It has cultural functions as well; aesthetic, spiritual, educational and recreational.
The estimated value of ecosystem services is around USD 33 trillion/year, which is twice the global gross national product.
The cost of loss of bio diversity is massive. Loss of topsoil due to deforestation can reduce rice output by 1.5 million tons a year, an amount that would feed up to 15 million people.
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=41957
No comments:
Post a Comment