President entrusts twin tasks to Minister Amaraweera: protect environment and cultivate unutilised farm lands

By Ifham Nizam

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has instructed Environment Minister Mahinda Amaraweera not to allow anyone to harm the environment while taking action to ensure that all abandoned farming lands countywide will be cultivated again.

Environment Minister Mahinda Amaraweera yesterday said: “Therefore, we do not have a problem with anyone of any rank. It is not the innocent villagers who are destroying the environment today, but a group of politicians, top businessmen and racketeers.”

He said that the Ministry of Environment had launched a national campaign to plant two million saplings within the next four years. “We started the tree planting programme and started distributing seedlings under the Husma Dena Thuru programme.

“We appoint a persons to take care of every plant. Today, there are reports of environmental destruction. Protecting the environment and development are two difficult tasks, but, but we will accomplish that balancing act.
Amaraweera said that due to the Covid pandemic there might be a global food crisis, and the President had instructed to cultivate all cultivable land to meet such an eventuality.

“Today, food crops fetch high prices. Due to this the owners of lands that have been left uncultivated are cultivating them. I know that some lands have been abandoned for between 10 to 15 years.”