Articles

by Anuradhi Jayasinghe Aloe vera is a perennial species, cultivated industrially for its medicinal value. Aura Lanka herbal (Pvt) Ltd has also initiated Sri Lanka’s largest aloe vera cultivation in the Anuradhapura district with the mindset of enhancing the community and natural wellbeing of the area. Since the commencement of the project, it has created debates across the country especially since the project has failed to present valid,  comprehensive environmental approvals. As per the already-obtained Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), the permitted land plots were only occupied for domestic cultivation with no forest intact, but the objective of land clearing was not only for Aloe vera. According to Aura Lanka Herbals (Pvt) Ltd, this initial clearing is a US$ 370 million investment, and hidden activities blanketed in the EIA report are building water tanks and irrigation systems, an international stadium, and a modern town plan. The approved EIA only consisted of the Aloe vera production. This is a clear violation of the National Environmental Act. Thus, it is conclusive that this project has no EIA approval. It is highly unlikely that the EIA process has covered all required steps since the assessment process seems to have ignored areas of the project. Most of the lands for this project have been obtained by farmers through permits which were issued through the Land Development Ordinance section 19 (2) and these lands come under the purview of the Divisional Secretary (DS), where they ca only utilise the land under special conditions. For instance, apart from constructing a house and a toilet, permit-holders cannot construct any additional facility on these lands. Farmers who wish to register for this project must obtain permission from the DS office. The granted permissions are also conditional as they were not to cut down any trees of commercial value without the prior approval of the DS not to damage public property not to transport any minerals out of the land not to change the topography of the land According to the project agreement, the nurturing of the plants is to be done by the farmers under the financial support from Aura Lanka herbals. However any issue relevant to the lands must be solved by the farmers at their own expense. This means it is the farmer who will be accused of violating the Flora and Fauna Protection Ordinance (FFPO), not the company. Farmers in Yaya 18 in Anuradhapura cultivate only one harvesting season due to a lack of water to support cultivations. Believing in unforeseen benefits, so far nearly 80 farmers have signed the agreement to give their lands to the project and the agreements are valid for 10 years. As the first phase of the company prepares the land for the farmers for the first phase of the project, 10% of the profits obtained by the farmers must be given to the company. Apart from adhering to the conditions by the DS office in cultivating aloe vera, they must comply with company conditions. Accordingly, farmers are not allowed to plant any crop other than aloe vera in his/her land. Seeing the benefits that families received by giving their lands to the project, the rest of the households are now planning to give their lands to the project. People cannot grow other crops for a living or at least for domestic consumption, they would be allowed to benefit from the said project. Some of the facilities given by Aura Lanka herbals to this area the installation of solar panels, road constructions, constructing the houses for farmers and distributing nutritional packages worth Rs.5000 per month. Providing such facilities seems to have created an environment that encourages household to voluntarily give their lands to the project and thereby the company does not have to deal with community outcry. These farmers who are already combating poverty, climatic calamities and human elephant conflicts embrace those said facilities or benefits by the Aura Lanka herbals warmly and work on any action set out by the company. For instance, farmers’ whose lands are very rocky where no planting could take place, have agreed to give the rocks to fill the reservoir constructed by the company. This is on one hand a violation of the conditions by the DS for the use of the land. People living in this area in Anuradhapura in the dry zone do not share equal wellbeing aspirations as those who live in areas like Colombo. Yet, the decisions to continue these projects are approved by people in Colombo who do not wish to live or never have lived a poor farming lifestyle. Also, the decision makers and those who are approving the projects are seemingly have neglected the impacts of the project on farm families. This is a huge loophole in large scale development and agricultural projects in Sri Lanka, where the impacts on society are given the least attention. Farmers in this project area are cultivating aloe vera by removing existing plantations and agreeing to give the only lands they have to a private company for unclear future benefits. There is no evidence to show how those farmers been provided with the knowledge on how to achieve the expected benefits and information on acting in any unprecedented situation. There is no way to assess the impact on the livelihoods without doing a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) along with EIA. An Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) is a process of “identifying, predicting and evaluating the likely environmental, socio-economic, and cultural impacts due to the implementation of a project, and to propose mitigation actions together with management and monitoring measures; not only to reduce negative impacts but also provide positive contributions to the natural environment and well-being of the community”. What if the farmer doesn’t get the expected profits from aloe vera – who would compensate for his effort? As mentioned earlier, farmers are now violating the conditions mentioned by the DS when cultivating aloe vera by way of removing rocks out of their lands. What happens to the family if the father or mother is charged for violating the DS’ conditions for the

Remembering and honouring the victims obligates us to do more to provide for a safer, better tomorrow. The 21st of August is The International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism.   This is  a day to remember the suffering of its victims, their families, and their communities. Even as we remember past victims, we must surely strive to ensure that there will not be more victims in the future . Terrorism is the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in society and  achieve a particular political objective. Terrorism has inflicted horrors on people in Sri Lanka and across the world. Terrorism is driven by right-wing and left-wing ideologies, colonialists,  nationalists and religious groups, revolutionaries, and even state institutions such as armies, intelligence services, and the police.  This is a description of reality, a statement of fact. Irrespective of the perpetrator’s ideology or place in society – their use of fear tactics and violence strikes terror in the hearts of the victims and leads to deaths, injuries, and destruction of property. The victims of terrorism are the softest targets – ordinary, unarmed, and unprepared civilians. The “Wars on Terror” have galvanized whole societies, paradoxically turning them into combatants and to targets. The specter of terrorism has also provided governments with political capital and the space to operate with impunity to fight terror. Consequently, the number of victims of terrorism continues to rise with the increasing number of purveyors of violence. We in Sri Lanka  have also experienced many bouts and forms of violence. We have given these acts of violence different names at different times. Riots, pogroms, mob violence, street justice, uprisings and insurrections, expressions of justifiable anger, the heinous crimes of extremists   – radicalized by political ideology or religion, civil war –are some of the words and phrases used to describe events and actions that struck terror into the hearts of victims and led to civilian deaths, injuries, and destruction of property. Sri Lanka has seen bouts of violence since 1956, but the violence was not labelled as terrorism. However, since 1979, the word “terrorism”  has been embedded in our political discourse.  However, even as we intensified our fight against terrorism, the numbers affected increased. The use of grenades, land mines, automatic firearms, and willing delivery agents of death – the suicide bombers – have intensified the violence and made acts of terrorism more difficult to contain, anticipate, repel, and even comprehend. The common thread is that these acts of violence have targeted innocent civilians for maximum effect. Remembering  and honoring the victims, obligates us to do more to  ensure  a safer, better tomorrow. It obligates us to support survivors of terrorism who are physically and emotionally scarred – perhaps for life.  It obligates us to support the families of terror victims as they too suffer collateral damage.  It also obligates us to seek better ways of protecting civilians while preparing against future attacks. This, in turn, obligates us to identify the root causes of terrorism and  attempt to address them. We must also be mindful of the need to protect people within the framework of the rule of law. Remembrance must go beyond ceremonials. It must be accompanied by concerted actions to ensure a safer, better tomorrow. Dr. Sakuntala Kadirgamar Executive Director Law and Society Trust

By Anuradhi. D Jayasinghe Sri Lanka’s global cumulative contribution to greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 was 0.03%. However, the country  ranked among the countries  most vulnerable to climate change in the global climate change risk index. This  indicates that Sri Lanka has a comparatively low carbon footprint but a significantly high climate change vulnerability. The IPCC AR6 report has shown that  intensified water cycles due to climate change are bringing more intense rainfall and associated flooding, changes in rainfall patterns, and monsoon precipitation in many regions of the world. These impacts are frequently visible  in Sri Lanka. The loss of lives, livelihoods and damageto the built environment are questioning the country’s development pathways. For instance, not only has climate change caused flooding but also misjudged and unsustainable decisions in the development pathways have caused flooding. For example, Central expressway development projects caused floods in many areas in Gampaha district in June 2021. The country is coping with continuous climate risks (i.e., flooding and intense rainfalls) throughout the year 2021 without having time to configure resilience planning. Thus, having contingency planning to enhance resilience to forthcoming climatic risks must be given  the most attention in Sri Lanka’s climate change preparedness agendas. Although there is a lower carbon footprint in Sri Lanka, the current trends in our consumption patterns are about to make significant changes in  per capita emissions in the long run. One of the alternatives for the sector-based approach of measuring ggreenhouse gas (GHG – e.g., CO2, CH4, N2O, etc.) emissions is consumption-based accounting (CBA). The CBA focuses on people’s consumption of goods and services and reports GHG emissions by consumption category, not the GHG emission by source category, which refers to  production-based accounting (PBA). The PBA of GHG emissions focuses on emissions from the domestic production of goods and services regardless of whether they are consumed domestically or are exported. The difference between the two accounting systems of GHG emissions indicates the net effect of emissions embodied in trade – the PBA generally refers to  emissions from exports  whereas  CBA  refers to  the emissions from imports of goods and services. Figure 1: Production vs. Consumption-based CO2 emissions in Sri Lanka Source: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/sri-lanka?country=~LKA The production vs. consumption-based CO2 emissions in Sri Lanka (Figure 1)  show a significantly increasing trend in  consumption-based emissions or  emissions from imports of goods and services.  Regardless of the situation, the Sri Lankan food sector is further promoting the importation of food items due to the sudden bans on chemical fertilizers and the decision to switch to organic farming without research and planning.  As the country faces its worst economic crisis, the pandemic, and increased vulnerability to climate change risks, the people have to cope with the grave consequences of hasty and ill-thought out agricultural policies introduced by the government.   Considering the types of landscape and demographics factors in facing these challenges, it is the urban poor and middle class who would suffer the most. Given the higher food prices they do not  have space to grow their food. At the same time, they have to cope with  climate risks such as  flash flooding, which frequently results iin lowering their resilience. Thus, the egoistic political agendas in Sri Lanka make the communities more vulnerable to climate change impacts. Witnessing that communities are being entrapped in the vulnerability loop of climate change the developed nations are still fueling the development models of the developing nations to work more on climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. The developed nations, the largest polluters on earth have the highest climate resilience while the developing nations have to incur the negative externalities from pollution while taking the majority of the responsibility in mitigating and adapting to climate change. China, USA and India are the world’s top three emitters that are responsible for 50% of the global CO2 emissions. In contrast, high-income oil producers – UAE and Saudi Arabia – are the top two in the list of per capita emissions followed by developed countries – Australia, the USA  etc.  Dividing the total emissions of a country by its population gives the per capita emissions. The highest per capita emissions in oil-producing countries are attributed to the relatively low population size and relatively low fuel prices prevailing. However, the more populous countries  that have the highest per capita emissions such as the USA, Australia and Canada  show a positive relationship between income and per capita emissions. This is also evident by the lowest per capita emissions found in many of the poorest African nations.  But higher incomes and high standards of living  do not always lead to  higher per capita emissions. For instance, certain European countries with high living standards – Portugal and France – show lower per capita emissions. This is attributed to the source of electricity generated in these countries, which are  renewable energy sources. Thus, the source of energy plays a key role in determining the emissions rates of a country. Notwithstanding the deliverables and the proposed strategies developed by international climate conventions will force the scientists to forecast climate change impacts merely accounting for business as usual. Setting goals for zero emissions by 2050 and  requiring the developing nations  to    reduce  carbon emissions   while allowing high income nations like China to use highly polluting coal power plants  is preposterous .. . When considering transitioning to greener sources of energy for countries like Sri Lanka, climate change adaptation and mitigation studies must also focus on the willingness of the general public to transition to renewables. Continuing willingness studies pave the path to investigate the barriers and prospects of overcoming them to the sustainable energy transition. The strategies to cope with emissions reductions and drafting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) should be followed by public hearings. Or else the conflict of interests would fail the transition projects at the very beginning. The introduction of floating solar power plants is one of the smartest moves that Sri Lanka has initiated mitigate the issues such as population density, agriculture needs, and declining forest cover and so forth. However, these floating solar power projects must first conduct