The Conservator Regular of Forests Mr. Okay.M.A Bandara talked about that the media critiques implying that Sri Lanka’s forest cowl has decreased to 16% are false.
He talked about this in response to a query made regarding the media report on the instructions of President’s Secretary Mr. Saman Ekanayake. The Presidential Secretariat had focussed its consideration relating to those critiques revealed inside the media.
The analysis of forest cowl is carried out every 5 years and the census carried out in 2020 is scheduled to be achieved in June this 12 months. In response to the census carried out in 2015, the pure forests of Sri Lanka stood at 29.15% (1,912,970 hectares) of the entire land extent.
The Conservator Regular of Forests moreover talked about that although there was some low cost inside the amount of forests on account of quite a few progress actions and completely different human actions inside the nation, there has undoubtedly been no decrease inside the amount of forests as a lot as 16% as stated inside the media critiques.
In response to media critiques, if the forest house in Sri Lanka is 16% of the entire land extent, then the prevailing forest house inside the nation must be 1,040,000 hectares. Due to this 872,970 hectares of forests must have been destroyed all through the seven years from 2015, which is 124,710 hectares per 12 months and 341 hectares of forest destruction per day.
He moreover talked about that the technique used to guage the forests must have been described inside the presentation of data on forests. Basic components such as a result of the definition of forests, the technique of estimating forest dimension, and the estimation of forest dimension must have been talked about inside the report. However, there is no provide from which the associated data was obtained inside the media critiques suggesting that the forest cowl had decreased.
The Conservator Regular further stated that if there’s widespread forest destruction, as reported inside the media, it must have been seen by the Division of Forest, the Division of Wildlife Conservation, the Sri Lanka Police, and the Sri Lanka Air Energy, which screens forests from the air. However, such in depth forest destruction has not been reported to any of these institutions. He moreover stated that the Forest Division is updating forest maps and that no such forest destruction was seen all through these actions.
(PMD)
