The Conservator Normal of Forests Mr. Okay.M.A Bandara mentioned that the media reviews implying that Sri Lanka’s forest cowl has decreased to 16% are false.
He mentioned this in response to a question made relating to the media report on the directions of President’s Secretary Mr. Saman Ekanayake. The Presidential Secretariat had focussed its consideration relating to these reviews revealed within the media.
The evaluation of forest cowl is carried out each 5 years and the census performed in 2020 is scheduled to be accomplished in June this 12 months. In response to the census performed in 2015, the pure forests of Sri Lanka stood at 29.15% (1,912,970 hectares) of the whole land extent.
The Conservator Normal of Forests additionally mentioned that though there was some discount within the quantity of forests as a result of numerous growth actions and different human actions within the nation, there has undoubtedly been no lower within the quantity of forests as much as 16% as said within the media reviews.
In response to media reviews, if the forest space in Sri Lanka is 16% of the whole land extent, then the prevailing forest space within the nation needs to be 1,040,000 hectares. Because of this 872,970 hectares of forests ought to have been destroyed throughout the seven years from 2015, which is 124,710 hectares per 12 months and 341 hectares of forest destruction per day.
He additionally mentioned that the strategy used to evaluate the forests ought to have been described within the presentation of knowledge on forests. Fundamental factors such because the definition of forests, the strategy of estimating forest dimension, and the estimation of forest dimension ought to have been talked about within the report. Nevertheless, there isn’t any supply from which the related information was obtained within the media reviews suggesting that the forest cowl had decreased.
The Conservator Normal additional said that if there’s widespread forest destruction, as reported within the media, it ought to have been noticed by the Division of Forest, the Division of Wildlife Conservation, the Sri Lanka Police, and the Sri Lanka Air Power, which screens forests from the air. Nevertheless, such in depth forest destruction has not been reported to any of those establishments. He additionally said that the Forest Division is updating forest maps and that no such forest destruction was noticed throughout these actions.
(PMD)
