An insightful collection

‘Politics of a Rainforest: Battles to Save Sinharaja’

By Kshama Ranawana

Given the controversies surrounding Sri Lanka’s World Heritage Site, the Sinharaja Forest, the timing of Dr. PrasannaCooray’s book, ‘Politics of a Rainforest: Battles to Save Sinharaja’ could not be better.

Scheduled to be launched on March 27, the book presents a collection of Dr. Cooray’s investigative reports, as well as some articles included as annexures authored by others on the decades long struggles to protect Sri Lanka’s natural resources and of the key players involved.

For the uninitiated, ‘Politics of a Rainforest: Battle to Save Sinharaja’ offers a good mix of information; the legal status of the forest, its history and bio-diversity, the many threats it faces both past and current and the efforts by environmentalists and other enthusiasts to protect this national heritage. Indeed, the information contained in the book will be useful to all those interested and even those actively involved in nature conservation.

How many, for instance are aware of the origins of ‘Ruk Rakaganno’ and its efforts to protect the pristineness of Sinharaja. Formed by actress Irangani Serasinghe, her sister Kamini Vitharana, the former director of the Wildlife Department and the Dehiwela Zoo, Lyn de Alwis, well known photographer Nihal Fernando and Vere de Mel, Ruk Rakaganno had played an important role in opposing Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s ‘Wagasangramaya’ programme, where large swathes of forests had been cut down to grow food crops as substitutes for imported varieties. We see something similar taking place even today.

Ruk Rakaganno

was instrumental in persuading Bandaranaike’s successor, Prime Minister J R Jayewardene to halt the cutting down of trees in the Sinharaja for the manufacture of plywood, a project that was in place between 1971 and 1977.

Dr. Cooray’s book also gives a chronological list of events that occurred between November 2019 and 2020, beginning with former President Maithripala Sirisena’s signing off on a gazette notification amalgamating nine peripheral forest reserves with the Sinharaja, thus expanding its land area, and the actual publication of the gazette by the Forest Department in November 2020. It was during this period that current President Gotabaya Rajapaksa commissioned the construction of the controversial Lankagama-Neluwa road. While construction of the road was halted temporarily in the face of protests, the President ordered that work recommence after the Parliamentary elections held in August last year. What’s missing in the narrative though is whether or not reports that appeared months after the road work was completed, showing parts of it washed away, were factual.

Given that the book is a compilation of previously published reports some of the information is repeated, nevertheless, it provides valuable input on the need to preserve the indigenous knowledge about the forest, that is now limited to just a handful of people, and the possibility of creating a ‘Lankagama Land Trust’ where the land could be purchased by the public and ownership transferred to the Forest Department to act as its custodian. Also included is a list compiled by Kusal Kavinda Amarasinghe of ‘Patents obtained from biological constituents of endemic animal and plant species in Sri Lanka and Indian sub-continent.’

The author is a medical doctor by profession, who as a committed environmentalist, has taken to journalism to impart his knowledge on the subject, and expose ecocidal activities. His efforts have won him two awards; Best Investigative Journalist in 2008 and Best Environmental Journalist (English) in 2017. He is also a member of the Earth Journalism Network.