MALWATHU OYA PROJECT TO DESTROY MORE FORESTS
Ranjan Karunanayake
Media Officer
The Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources Management has proposed Lower Malwathu Oya Reservoir (LMOR ) with the objectives reducing the flooding in the Malwathu Oya basin and increasing the water availability in Giant tank and Akathimuruppu tank and thereby increasing the crop production. An EIA report was prepared and recently opened for the public comments. Centre for environmental justice opposed the above project due to massive clearance and inundation of forests and not identifying enough alternatives for the project in the EIA report. The project will inundate 4044 ha of land upstream of the dam site and the area immediately downstream of the dam will be developed as irrigated lands and resettlement areas.
Approximately 60-70% of the area identified for inundation is covered with natural habitats such as Dry mixed evergreen forests, riverine forests and thorn scrub that shelter many floral and faunal species.(1893 ha of disturbed and undisturbed forests and 735 ha of scrub jungle) Justifying them as degraded forest areas, due to Chena cultivations practiced time to time is not acceptable. In addition to that 810 ha will be cleared for new cultivations and 277 ha for resettlements. At Least 3715 ha of forests will be cleared due to the project.
The project is in close proximity to the Wilpattu National Park, Madu road and Giant tank sanctuaries and many forest reserves. Wilpattu National Park is located approximately 6-8 km to the west of the project affected area.
The proposed resettlement site is located adjacent to the Wilpattu National Park. This will affect the Wilpattu national park and the Wilpattu forest system negatively. This will create an opening for illegal activities such as timber felling, hunting etc.
In addition to that, the proposed elephant corridor runs through the resettlement area separating the land into two. If elephants actually use this corridor there is a high risk of creating a human elephant conflict. Proposed new cultivation areas are also located close to the forest areas where elephants reside and they will come to croplands to eat paddy and other crops. Therefore the project will escalate the human elephant conflict.
The project recommends Department of Wildlife Conservation to establish a new entrance to Wilpattu National Park near Thanthirimale town the by providing infrastructure such as improving the access road to the proposed entrance and establishing the entrance including the proposed buildings.
The purpose of the new entrance is to increase the number of visitations to the park. However we believe that this will bring negative impacts. More vehicles will travel to the park and this will disturb the wildlife activities unnecessarily. Therefore we oppose this suggestion to set up a new entrance to the Wilpattu national park.
Instead of building a large reservoir, rehabilitation of the existing small and medium scale tank system should have been considered as an alternative.
People from the affected area also believe that as an option. In addition to that no any other alternatives have been evaluated such as different areas for resettlement.
The forest cover of the country is being declined day by day. It is our duty to preserve the existing forest cover by all means. Therefore a more voice needs to be raised regarding this project.[END]
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