‘Displaced’ wild elephants evicted from Hambantota Port

Officers from the Hambantota Office of Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) launched an operation on Monday evening to evict a herd of wild elephants that had entered the premises of the Hambantota Magampura Port.

The operation lasted from 5.30pm to about 9.00pm and DWC officers were able to chase away some 15 elephants who had made their way into the port.

Officials from the China Harbor Engineering Corporation had told the DWC that about 40 wild elephants were roaming around the port premises and were causing damage to property on a daily basis.

Environmentalists however, point out that the main reason for such incidents is the continued reluctance on the part of officials to declare a separate reserve for wild elephants in the Hambantota region who have become displaced due to the construction of the Magampura Port and the Mattala Airport. They note that the former regime ignored the recommendation to declare an elephant reserve despite it being explicitly stated in the Enviornmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) of the two projects. The tragedy is that the present Government is adopting the same approach as the former, they notee. This has resulted in about 350 wild elephants in the region being evicted from their natural habit which has been taken over for development work.

By Rahul Samantha Hettiarachchi in Hambantota  

Source – 08/03/2017 , Times Online, See more at – http://www.sundaytimes.lk/article/1018158/displaced-wild-elephants-evicted-from-hambantota-port

Netherlands assists SL to improve horticultural industry

Issues of Social-Environmental Sustainability

By Riza Yehiya

Building boom in Sri Lanka today is primarily seen in the housing sector. This sector has opened up since the end of war, where the State driven housing are mainly for the poor and the private driven are mainly for the rich. Rich or poor, as human beings, their housing needs need to get the social-environmental sustainability basics right, in order to make sustainable societies. Failing which would make Sri Lanka become a much polarized society leading the rich to live in gated communities and the poor in newly built ghettos, segregating one from the other.

Our communities were more socially and environmentally sustainable in the 1940s than now. The many post-independence developments in the sector, which only concentrated on giving a better built environment to the masses, have failed to link them with their environment and society sustainably. This is one of the reasons attributed to influence social polarization. Current development trends seem to exacerbate this with potentials to polarize people based on rich/ poor segmentation without a middle class that cements the two together. The widening rich-poor gap and the thinning of the middle class segment in society can potentially undermine the economy and society altogether. Apart from this, those ‘poor’ who will live in high-rise apartments in the cities, their tendency to link with nature and society will become remote. Consequently, this may drive their stress levels to transform to irritations and then to conflicts in our conurbations. The onset of neoliberal economy in Sri Lanka would make the rich richer and poor poorer; the reflection of this economic model is visible in the emerging developments in Colombo and its suburbs.

Environmental sustainability

Environmental sustainability is the driver influencing development decisions in the country. The government advocates this as one of its stated goals of development in the country. It applies to all aspects of our life to ensure sustainability. Therefore, it is imperative that housing, the basic needs of the people, should be made available in the market with sustainability features that support long term sustainability.

Contrarily, the present market does not seem to supply sustainable housing that ensures social-environmental sustainability that links people with the built environment, nature and society. It seems ‘business as usual’ approach by the market does not recognize the need to connect people with nature and the need for the built environment to form a new ecology to ensure social-environmental sustainability. Instead, what is prevalent is greenwashing and meeting the triple bottom line of the project developer to maximize profit.

The current housing market is ambivalent, which on one hand applies ‘business as usual’ approach without any consideration whatsoever regarding ‘sustainability aspects’ and on the other adds up certain sustainability elements as marketing tools to increase sales. There is a lack of holism to produce sustainable housing to the people. Its supply chain is deficient and deficit in achieving sustainable results in terms of physical, social and environmental sustainability.

The application of Ecologically Sustainable Design (ESD) is usually confined to the design aspects more in the physical sense to achieve bioclimatic goals, but tends to lack holism to integrate the ‘Social’ (cultural, political, economic, psychological, community) and ‘Environmental’ (physical, built, ecological, technological) aspects of sustainability. This is a major deficit that makes the current practice ill equipped to address sustainability holistically. The way ESD is adopted in practice delivers only partial achievement of sustainability goals. Therefore, it often fails to address issues affecting sustainability that lie outside the areas concentrated on by prevailing sustainability practices. This is due to the absence of ecological knowledge and thinking, and an overarching ecological sustainability framework to address bioclimatic, social-environmental and sustainability aspects which link people with nature, built environment and society as constituents of the larger ecology.

The reason for this phenomenon may be the prevailing world view, in particular the ‘capitalist market economy’ that segments and atomizes people to understand them as ‘consumers’ and then target products and services to them to garner better profits. This transaction takes place in a compartmentalized and isolated form and in contradiction to the ecologies of society, economy, nature and the environment. This in turn inevitably affects social-environmental sustainability. Therefore, a paradigm shift that looks at the market from an ecological point of view is an imperative.

Our Common Future

The issues of sustainability are contingent upon ‘satisfying the needs of the present without undermining future needs’ as the Bruntland Commission proposed as a strategy in their report, ‘Our Common Future’ in 1987. Following this report, an array of tools and drivers of Legislative Environmental Controls, Economic Instruments, Environmental Taxes, Building Codes and Rating Systems were developed, culminating in evolving the Earth Charter. These instruments generally cover the gamut of sustainability in terms of: Respect and care for community life, Ecological Integrity, Social and Economic Justice and Democracy, Non-violence and Peace. However, translating these into broader practice is dominated by industry and market forces in terms of establishing sustainability benchmarks and, to a lesser extent, by State regulations that represent the interests of the people. Industry dominance and the influence of market forces have been selective in using sustainability drivers and tools that directly influence market profitability.

In the present housing market, ESD is adopted only as a marketing tool to add value to housing products to enhance sales and maximize profit. That too, only in the housing for the rich, but rarely the ESD is applied in the housing for the poor. The sale of a housing unit has become more like the sale of an automobile which concentrates on the intrinsic features of the product in isolation from the rest of the environment. However, housing as a product has to be fit for purpose, accommodating a human family that is part of the community, society and humanity. It has its ethos, values, cultures, links and connectivity, behaviour patterns dominating its private and public life, in private and public spaces respectively. It is linked to nature: the wider environment, and the built environment and technology that sustain it. Therefore, housing as a product to support basic human needs must satisfy all that is entailed to give the user the desired benefits by providing ‘creature comfort’, resource and economic sustainability, psycho-social sustainability through linking with community, people, nature, environment and society.

In the real business world, people’s wants and what the market supplies are not really matched. More often than not, people are not satisfied with the products that they buy due to their knowledge gap in making the right purchase decision or influence of coercive market strategies stimulating their subliminal force prompting to make a decision. Therefore, in the real transactions, only when purchase decisions are made is when customers realize the follies of their ill informed decision. Customer ignorance is a common denominator in the decision making process. Therefore, to protect them, they need to be availed with better awareness and information of products. Especially with regard to house purchase decisions, customers need awareness and relevant information database and specifications that direct them to make informed decisions about the house of their choice that contribute to long-term sustainability.

Housing Problem

Sri Lankan housing was traditionally taken care of by the vernacular self-builds which transformed to State house building on mass-scale during the 60s and 70s which stagnated due to conflict in the country. Currently, Sri Lanka in the threshold of post-industrial society, the housing industry has transited from vernacular self-builds to centrally planned mass housing to suit the social and economic models of society. This transition not only changed the building design and technology, but also the morphology of towns and cities from natural ecosystem to a new environment requiring a new ecology of its own.

Industrialization, urbanization and the economic models determined the shape of the society to come. The role of the government which represents the people is reduced by the power of the market forces which determine values, cultures, wants and needs of people influenced by consumerism and globalization. These unfettered powers determine price, quality, quantity, supply and demand in the market in which the State has no direct leverage. Artificial demand creations for the purpose of profit maximization and social segmentation to derive market segmentation have unsustainably pushed cost and quality of products being served. Growing population, limited choices for house selection, limits of affordability and social mobility compounded by lack of public housing is causing ‘housing stress’. Housing stress will be felt by people even if there were surplus houses in a given society due to the manipulations of the market forces. We may come across a situation of a mass of empty houses on one hand and on the other a permutation of homeless masses paradoxically.

The way the sustainability agenda is implemented at present is through different tiers in the State. The producers achieve sustainability benchmarks in respect to their product/s more in isolation than by being part of a larger framework of ecological sustainability that the products tend to influence positively or negatively. These are endorsed by State and/or industry-specific institutions that are responsible for implementing the sustainability agenda. Apart from this, there are instruments that govern the sustainability agenda both through industry-specific and State agencies. Most of these agencies implement them more in isolation of the other aspects and limited to areas like environmental pollution, ecological disruption, socio-economic sustainability and so on. For example, it is common sense that development decisions are hinged on economic bottom lines as opposed to sustainability. Any development project whether public or private driven, development decision makers or project proponents and their respective development partners or project approving agencies, their fundamental questions at project formulation are economic feasibility, economic sustainability and profitability. Here, neither the project proponent nor the project approving agencies hinge their decisions on ecological sustainability that is profitable on multiple fronts satisfying all stakeholders in the society.

Legislative environmental
controls

These largely are more focused on controlling pollution through regulatory instruments. These are preventative measures that attempt to control pollution by regulation, setting standards, incentives, solutions and other parametric requirements to comply with pollution prevention. These measures are implemented by State agencies that superintend pollution control directly and indirectly. These are not comprehensive enough as singular preventative tools. History testifies that in the case of most major environmental accidents, preventative measures have failed and the environmental cost of damage is disproportionately higher that the punitive fines imposed on perpetrators. These control systems play only one part in protecting the environment, but are not all-encompassing as a sustainability driver.

Historically, building codes emerged as drivers to ensure public health and safety in buildings and construction. Currently most of the prevailing building codes are outdated, but are applied all over the world as ‘business as usual’ without any major changes to make them relevant to sustainability. For example, most of the developed countries that advocate sustainability are yet to evolve a country specific uniform sustainability building code that encompass not only the energy and resource efficiency factors, but also social-environmental factors enforcing designed response.

Presently, most of the building codes seem to be barriers to sustainable practices. This is particularly seen during project formulation, when potential developers consider complying with building codes as a fundamental requirement for project approval, such as seeking approval for a building plan. The project proponent is confronted by the municipal building regulations which are codified much before sustainability issue came to the forefront of discussion. Therefore, they are forced to comply with the present codes without review to accommodate sustainability. Hence, the status quo does not fully support genuine sustainability goals. This force developer to initiate design process complying with a code based on unsustainable – or not fully sustainable – development practices. Regarding this Professor Joo Bay, (2010) notes in ‘Towards A Fourth Ecology’ that: “For a poor nation, social sustainability may warrant a much higher weighting, but for the rich nations, addressing climate change (with current ESD directions and carbon trading policies) and maintenance of status quo is a bigger issue.”

Will the next generation housing be socially and environmentally sustainable in Sri Lanka?

Source – 09/02/2017.Ceylon Today, See more at – http://www.ceylontoday.lk/print20170101CT20170331.php?id=14825

Wild jumbo threat in Ampara

By Our Ampara Correspondent

The villagers of Ashraff Nagar in the Addalaichenai DS Division staged a march on Sunday to create awareness on the threats they faced from wild elephants.

The participants, mostly farmers, shouted out saying that their livelihood has been affected due to the wild elephants.

The villagers called on the relevant authorities to erect electric fences, fix street lights, and provide them with adequate protection from the wild elephants.

The villagers said that the areas of Ashraf Nagar, Sambu Nagar and Hira Nagar were the most dangerous and vulnerable to wild elephants that are known to roam these areas in sizeable numbers. They claim that owing to this threat they are unable to move freely because of the tense situation. As a result most of them are confined to their homes.

They added that on many occasions they are forced to take shelter with relatives or friends owing to the threat from wild elephants.

They appealed to the authorities to look into their problems and take appropriate action to protect them from wild elephants so that they could lead a peaceful life.

Source – 07/03/2017,Ceylon Today, See more at -http://www.ceylontoday.lk/article20170101CT20170331.php?id=4298

Special tourism zone from Thabbowa to Wilpattu

Government has decided to establish a special tourism zone from Thabbowa to Wilpattu, said the State Minister of Skill Development and Vocational Training Palitha Range Bandara.

He said that, the government under this program is expected to create at least 15, 000 direct and indirect job opportunities.

The project will be implemented with long and short term plans.

He further added that the initiative work of the Thabbowa economic zone has already commenced and President Maithripala Sirisena has also paid special attention in this regard.

Source -06/03/2017, Ceylon today . See more at – http://www.ceylontoday.lk/article20170101CT20170331.php?id=4293

Rules flouted at Yala National Park

Drivers, eager to please tourists, increasingly engage in rec klesss behaviour that not only harass the animals, but also putting the lives of tourists at risk.

We observed several such incidents including driving vehicles at high speed, taking  the jeeps off designated pathways, climbing atop vehicles and the obstruction of animals.

Authorities imposed strict regulations, including speed limits on vehicles inside the sanctuary after a leopard was killed by a speeding vehicle on August 28. 2015.

However recently many safari jeep drivers, have been flouting the regulations.

While less than 125 safari jeeps were in operation during the war years, today over 700 jeeps operate in the same area.

The lack of a proper mechanism to regulate the entry of jeeps entering the reservation has created further problems, including traffic jams, inside the park.

Officials also say most jeeps operate in only one section of the park despite the park being divided into five sections.

Director General of the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), W.H.D. Pathirathna said there were plans to divide the Yala forest into three separate sections and restrict entry of vehicles to only one section. He added however, this would take time as it required a large investment.

In the meantime, authorities have stepped up patrols inside the park to locate and ban jeeps which flout park regulations.

Source – 05/03/2017 , The Sunday Times ,See more at – http://www.sundaytimes.lk/170305/news/rules-flouted-at-yala-national-park-231524.html

Despite nationwide drought disaster, no emergency

An elderly resident in Hemmathagama, Aranayake looks down a well that has run dry. Pix by Saman Wijeya Bandara

By Anushiya Sathisraja

In twenty three out of the 25 districts of Sri Lanka, people are crying out for water, farmlands are parched and indebted farmers are facing long-term financial ruin. The country’s economy will weaken by a percentage point, an international rating agency has warned, while also noting that the debt-laden island’s fiscal deficit target will not be met.

More than a million people are suffering, especially in the main rice-growing districts including Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Kurunegala.

But the island will not declare a state of emergency because the tourism industry could be affected, Disaster Management Minister, Anura Priyadharshana Yapa, told the Sunday Times, adding that relief programmes are continuing, he said.

“5,000 water tanks and 250 tractor mounted bowsers have been requested by the ministry. The Disaster Management Center has ordered 50 tractor mounted bowsers separately, which have been already distributed to Gampaha and Kurunegala districts. We plan to distribute others shortly,’’ he said.

To avert food shortages, 250,000 metric tonnes of rice are being imported, he said.

Colombo will not face a water shortage because of the high levels of water in the Kelani River, but he warned that sea water is flowing into the river.

A report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says 15 per cent of the rice harvest will be lost this year. The overall paddy harvest is likely to be lowest for three years and vegetable prices have increased sharply in the past three months.

Professor Anthony Norbet of the Colombo University’s Department of Geography said efforts should be made to improve the people’s ability to cope with the effects of the drought. He suggests cultivating crops such as kurakkan that requires less water.

Subsistence paddy farmers who depend on minor irrigation, make up the majority of people hit by the drought.

Gradually declining rainfall over the last four years in combination with the lower Maha and Yala harvest of recent years, have left them progressively poorer.

Despite intermittent rains last week, 18 districts are badly affected and worse, including food shortages, are feared.

Disaster Management Centre figures reveal that 303,000 families comprising more than a million people are experiencing an acute water shortage. The Northern Province is the hardest-hit with 411,796 people suffering.

All districts in the North, Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, Mannar, Killinochchi and Jaffna are experiencing the severe dry spell; with the most affected being the Jaffna district’s Delft (4,586), Kayts (3,553), Maradankulam Karainagar (10,500), Telippalai (10,172), Chavakachcheri (24,024) and Chankanai (7,445) areas.

The second largest number of people affected are in the Western Province  407,600, while 67,442 are affected in Minuwanagoda. In Divulapitiya, and Katana 61,140 and 27,051 are suffering, respectively.

Sri Lanka relies heavily on seasonal monsoon rains for water. And as a result of poor monsoons over the past two years as well as weak rainfall in the early months of this year, reservoirs, ponds and wells have dried up.

Studies suggest that while there have been alternate dry and wet spells over the past three decades, the frequency of drought years has been increasing.

Weather experts also say there is a need for further study to address this issue since the South Asian region is set to face severe drought spells for the next three decades.

The constant cooling of the atmosphere over Central Asia has been cited as one of the main reasons for frequent drought years in the country, Lalith Chandrapala, the director general of the Department of Meteorology said.

Due to the atmospheric disturbance in the vicinity of Sri Lanka showery conditions are expected to continue during next few days, particularly today.

Cloudy skies along with showers or thundershowers can be expected at times over Eastern, Northern North Central and Uva provinces and Hambantota district. Showers or thundershowers will occur elsewhere particularly after 2.00pm.

Fairly heavy showers (of about 75 mm) are also likely at some places. There may be temporary localised strong winds during thundershowers.

From a transit compound for animals to the birth of our zoo

The fact that the Zoo exists is due to the curiosity of Europeans in the 19th century about the animals of tropical lands that they read about in explorers’ and colonisers’ accounts. Elephants, leopards, crocodiles, dragons … all sounded so incredible, they had to be seen to be believed. As some pioneer animal collectors discovered, there was money to be made in capturing wild animals in the tropics and sending them to Europe where people would pay to see them on display.

Sri Lanka became Europe’s source of animals for zoos and circuses as a result of the efforts of two men, both German. This country was actually the leader in the conservation of natural resources, regarding them as assets. The world’s first fauna and flora sanctuary was established at Mihintale in the 3rd century BC by King Devanampiyatissa (250-210 BC).

In modern times, the opening of National Parks at Yala in a protected area of 979 sq km and Wilpattu with an area of 1,316 sq km in February 1938 was a conscious effort to protect the many species, especially elephants and leopards, living within them. Up to then, jungle animals were considered as “game” to be shot, not as food but as trophies. The government-run National Zoological Gardens had been opened to the public two years earlier to give people a chance to see wild animals in a mock jungle habitat; to marvel at them just as people did at zoos in Europe.

However, the opening of the Zoo was not a deliberate plan of the government. It happened because of the bankruptcy of the private company that created and owned a depot in Dehiwala where wild animals from Sri Lanka, and in transit from India and East Asia to Europe, were caged.

The capture and collecting of wild animals in a professional way was begun in the island colony at the beginning of the last century by a settler from Germany, John Hagenbeck (1866-1940). He was the half-brother of Carl Hagenbeck (1844-1913) who became famous in Europe as an animal dealer and zoo creator.

John and Carl were the sons of Gotfried Claes Carl Hagenbeck (1810-1887), who was a fishmonger in Germany with a part time business in buying and selling exotic animals. John settled in Ceylon in 1891 when he was 25, attracted – like many Europeans –  to the island by the profits to be made from being a tea planter.However, he was persuaded by his brother Carl to capture animals in Ceylon and ship them to him in Germany.

He did so enthusiastically sending an early shipment of wild animals that included 67 Ceylon elephants. This enabled Carl to start the world’s first open-plan zoo at Stellingen, near Hamburg in 1907. Following the success of this, other countries wanted animals and John Hagenbeck obliged, finding a plentiful supply in this country where wild animals were considered an annoying impediment to the progress of colonisation. He also arranged to import animals from other countries and in the 1920s established a transit compound on 11 acres of land he bought in what was then jungle wilderness near Dehiwala.His success resulted in the start of various Hagenbeck circuses and zoos around the world, as well as being the beginning of the National Zoological Gardens.

The second German enters the scene then in the shape of a forgotten pioneer, a German zoologist called Heinz Randow. His activities only came to light when he wrote a book, published in English in 1958, about his adventures in this country 35 years before. It is an astonishing, as well as entertaining book called Zoo Search in Ceylon. It was published with a dramatic cover showing a snarling tiger.

Not much is known about Heinz Randow, apart from what he cares to reveal in his book which defines him as fearless in his pursuit and care of wild animals, while appreciating the luck that saved him many times from being killed by beasts, snakes or scorpions. The remarkable composure shown by the author in trying circumstances is evident from the book’s beginning, when he states: “John Hagenbeck picked me out of the crowd of passengers leaving the ship, drove me by car from Colombo in a southerly direction towards Dehiwala.

“The plan was to set up there a collecting station for animals and later, perhaps, even a zoo…Beyond Wellawatte we went across broken country through coconut groves and areca estates into the bush. After driving through a small Sinhalese village we drew up in a large compound by a lake, on whose shores crocodiles were basking in the sun. On our right was a bungalow which looked as if it had been built in early pioneer days. Close by I saw some light, airy structures roofed with palm leaves, in the shelter of which were cages with tigers and leopards. In the shade of a coconut grove work-elephants dozed in their chains.”

Hagenbeck took Randow to the bungalow. “He indicated the cluster of natives who stood there gaping at us, [and said] ‘Pick yourself a boy to act as your personal servant from this crowd.  [You must] get to know Sinhala and Tamil, the two native languages.’ Then he gave me a loaf of bread and half a pound of butter and drove back to Colombo.”

Randow’s book is a fascinating account of how he settled in and survived for several years, building up a team of local hunters who captured animals to be exported for Hagenbeck’s enterprises, or to be put on display at the depot in Dehiwala. Randow also describes how he began clearing the area that was the beginning of today’s Zoo.

“Four leopards, four tigers, two black panthers, about two hundred monkeys of various kinds, and a few deer were housed in makeshift cages in the large compound. This flat area, teeming with lizards, snakes and other creatures, was still only partially developed, so I made it one of my most urgent jobs to build paths and footways through the wilderness of plants.

“After a few days everything was going smoothly. Each morning at seven o’clock a chattering crowd of natives stood in front of my bungalow, the men on the left, the women on the right. Tasks were allotted and work began. Paths were built, stretches of scrubland burnt, and sheds put up, in the shelter of which cages were to stand. One working-party fenced the land in with barbed wire, another built enclosures for deer and other animals and slowly everything took shape…At last the stage was reached at which the capture and purchase of animals could begin.”

The alert reader may wonder about the presence of tigers in Randow’s cages. They were there in transit as the compound was used as a base for gathering animals from around the region for eventual shipment to the Hagenbeck headquarters in Germany. Randow tells of how one day caged animals were to arrive by steamer from Bangkok for transhipment. When the ship anchored, Randow discovered that the man in charge of the animals had been taken ill with malaria and hadn’t fed or watered the animals for a few days. He writes: “My first duty, therefore, was to provide all the birds and mammals with fresh drinking water. When this had been done we attended to the malaria patient and had him taken to hospital.”

Fortunately the animals survived the journey and Randow recounts his animal residents were increased by several monkeys, as well as “ten black panthers, six almost fully grown tigers…” He also mentions a tiger sent from Madras as a cub “packed in a basket lined with banana leaves.”

He recalls that while transporting by ox cart from Colombo harbour crates containing ten Asiatic black bears that had arrived by steamer from Bombay, the convoy was attacked by a leopard as it approached Dehiwala. To save his life, Randow shot the animal dead. Usually he preferred to capture animals or to buy them from locals who caught them and brought them to his verandah. By his own account, he had dozens of cages of such a variety of animals, that the compound became an informal Zoo. Rendow hired a Eurasian who spoke English to act as guide to the tourists who began to visit the Zoo.

In a review of the book published in the Chicago Sunday Tribune in 1958, Randow is described as “a German zoologist” with the comment that “some of the outstanding denizens of European zoos were collected by Randow.” This overlooks his informal foundation of the Dehiwala Zoo by collecting so many creatures, from tiny turtles to hulking elephants, and creating an amenable environment where they could be viewed by the curious.

Randow eventually returned to Germany and the company created by John Hagenbeck called the Ceylon Zoological Gardens Company went bankrupt. It was saved by being taken over by the government and a superintendent put in charge. When it was made an autonomous department in 1946, the main aim was to satisfy people’s curiosity and thus the Zoo was more focused on entertainment rather than conservation.

In his foreword to the 1957 guide, “Dehiwela Zoo, Ceylon” the then Minister of Home Affairs, A. P. Jayasuriya, proudly claimed the zoo is “well in the forefront of the most beautiful zoos in the world.” The 168-page guide was compiled by the Zoo’s director, Major Aubrey N. Weinman, who wrote, “We rather have the predilection for a small friendly Zoo of about 40 acres…to display the animals to their best advantage…by giving them their natural environment as far a possible.”

Writing about the Zoo as it was 60 years ago, he states: “The Zoo can point with pride to well conditioned, healthy and happy looking animals; beautiful and colourful settings abounding in brilliant foliage and flowers; absolute cleanliness and absence of odour.” A photograph of the Zoo in the book makes it seem pastoral and idyllic.

As well as giving a description of the 2,000 animals then in the Zoo, Weinman adds fascinating notes about the daily diet of those animals, such as “A seven-foot elephant consumes a 1,000lb of food a day” and “A rattlesnake or cobra has a small rat once a week.” He lists the daily food requirements of the Zoo as including 90lb of bananas, 48 grasshoppers, 24 frogs, eight rats and 250lb of beef or horsemeat.

While today’s visitors to the Zoo have little idea of how it grew out of an independent animal-exporting depot in the wilderness, because of the extraordinary efforts of John Hagenbeck and Heinz Randow, they can enjoy seeing animals not just from Sri Lanka but from around the world.

Source – 05/03/2017,The Sunday Times, See more at – http://www.sundaytimes.lk/170305/plus/from-a-transit-compound-for-animals-to-the-birth-of-our-zoo-231149.html

Nochchiya solar village gets water and revenue

Solar roofs: Work in progress to install solar panels in the dry zone village of Nochchiya

The first stage of a large solar village project at Nochchiya village-cluster in the Kurunegala district has been completed, with the installation of two solar power systems funded by UK-registered charities – The Association of Professional Sri Lankans in the UK (APSL) and Hela Sarana.
The Hela-Sarana-funded system was dedicated in memory of Raja Meehitiya, founder President of Hela Sarana who passed away in June 2015.
Nochchiya will be the second large village cluster to benefit from the solar village concept in Sri Lanka, the first being Kaduruwewa in the Kurunegala district, where the concept was launched in 2008.

The solar village project concept was designed and developed by Prof. I.M. Dharmadasa, in the late 1990s to empower rural communities using clean energy technologies for sustainable development and poverty reduction. Poverty reduction programmes in any community should have two main features; wealth creation methods and follow-up methods for job creation within the community.

Community spirit: Nochchiya villagers hold a meeting to mark the completion of the first phase of the project

Two solar roofs of 3 KW each were installed in the village with the funding provided by the two charities. The cost of each system was Rs. 830,000 (£4.500). The power produced from 6 KW solar roofs will be fed into the national grid, and the income generated will be used to cover the cost of two water pumping stations that would be operated using grid electricity. The revenue will be managed in a fully transparent way by the Village Development Committee with guidance from project initiators. The project team will monitor the performance of the two solar roofs.

The water pumped and purified is mainly used for drinking by more than 1200 people in this village thereby preventing any kidney or water related diseases. The purified water is also available to seven surrounding villages. They can buy it at a nominal price. The project team within the APSL-UK is guiding the community to achieve rapid economic development applying the solar village concepts.
The project also fulfils 13 of the 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) of the United Nations, and is also highly relevant to Sri Lanka as it supports the Government’s recently launched “Soorya Bala Sangramaya” (Battle for Solar Energy) programme.

Source – 05 /03/ 2017 , The Sunday Times, See more at – http://www.sundaytimes.lk/170305/sunday-times-2/nochchiya-solar-village-gets-water-and-revenue-231497.html

Deadly garbage dumps pose elephantine problems

By Malaka Rodrigo

 Agonising death: The elephant which died after suffering for more than a month after eating garbage at Manampitiya. Pic by Karunaratne Gamage

This well grown male, about 20 years of age, was part of a herd that fed on garbage from a dump at Manampitiya. It had fallen ill in the third week of January. A veterinary surgeon and a team of wildlife officers tried to flush out any non-digestive materials from its stomach. One even inserted a hand through its anus to manually pull anything that remained. At first they pulled out about 15 kilograms of polythene in a day and over a month about 30 kilograms were removed.

Dr Pramuditha Devasurendra who had treated the elephant, rejected the idea that the polythene was the cause of death. He said toxic bacteria in rotting food may have been the cause. “The garbage pit contains lots of lunch sheets with rotten food. Deadly bacteria can grow on the food. This is main reason for the death of the elephant.”

Dr Devasurendra revealed that a post-mortem did not find any polythene in the bowels of the dead elephant. Its liver and spleen were damaged.

He said he had treated another elephant about half a kilometre away from the garbage dump at Manampitiya. “That elephant too died and I have been unfortunate to witness deaths of at least 10 elephants since I assumed duties in this area four years ago,” Dr Devasurendra said.

The Manampitiya dump is not the only one that attracts elephants. A garbage dump in Dambulla attracts elephants. Yet another dump in Hambantota is protected by an electric fence.

Dr. Devasurendra said an electric fence was needed at Manampitiya.

Meanwhile, Dr Prithiviraj Fernando, estimates that there are at least 50 locations where elephants come to forage at the dump. They are mostly in the dry zone.

Dr Fernando said piles of vegetables, over ripe fruit, flour, rice, bread and the like are more nutritious than what is found naturally. Elephants which rummage for these at the dumps are in better health, he said.

But he said every day 500 elephants may be eating garbage. “In a year, how many of them would die as a result? How does this compare with other ‘unnatural’ causes of elephant deaths? Such as being shot, hakka patas, injuries from trap guns and nooses, train or vehicle accidents, starving to death inside parks after being driven in and restricted with electric fences,” he asks.

This also means the elephants are not raiding farms. So if they are to be prevented from raiding garbage dumps would it increase the human elephant conflict, and how many of them would be injured and killed? And how many people would be injured and killed? Dr Fernando asks.

“So before jumping in and trying to ‘fix’ something one should first find out what the problem is, figure out the cost and benefit of ‘fixing’ and make an informed decision. Otherwise the cure may be worse than the disease,” he warns.

Dr. Fernando suggests separating the organic matter from the plastics, metals, and glass materials before being dumped.

 Source – 05/03/2017 ,The Sunday Times , See more at – http://www.sundaytimes.lk/170305/news/deadly-garbage-dumps-pose-elephantine-problems-231517.html