Samurdhi benefits: Who gets in, who's left out
There was a lot of heartburn when the names of the new Samurdhi recipients in the village were disclosed. I could not understand what all the fuss was about. The sum assured is less than Rs. 30/- a day. This they could earn in an hour - If they wanted to.

Further, they would only be able to utilize Rs. 350/- of the Rs.750/, to buy their groceries from the cooperative. The balance would be held back, by the authorities, to be utilized to pay an insurance premium on behalf of the beneficiary, and a deposit into the beneficiary's savings account with the Samurdhi Bank.

In the past Samurdhi was given to all those who earned less than $2 per day. The authorities felt that this criterion could be manipulated so it is based on the family's living standards. It took into account the type of dwellings the beneficiaries lived in, and their material acquisitions - Do they have a TV? A water pump? With what material is their dwelling built? Do they have electricity?

Let me give you a few portraits of the Samurdhi beneficiaries in our village.

Soma works very hard. Her husband is a mason. He earns about Rs. 500/- per day. In the past they had both worked on a tea estate, but found the work "too hard". So they obtained a few perches of state land and shifted out. The money they received from their ETF has been put into building their home.

Their home is still half-built but has electricity. They manage to feed their five children by Soma taking on the bulk of the responsibility. Her little garden patch provides them with vegetables and she also makes sweetmeats and harvests paddy during the season. Her new mushroom enterprise will also help bolster their income.

But this year, Soma has been left out of the Samurdhi list. She seems to think that it is because her home has electricity.

Prema and her brother have also been taken off the Samurdhi list. Prema is furious and now keeps visiting all the government officials in the hope of getting back her "lost rights". She lives with her sister (whose husband works in the Middle East) and an unmarried brother. Their land contains two houses. One is the old house, where they live. The other house, belonging to Prema's sister has all the modern conveniences. A water pump, a stereo player, a TV and a video deck, a two-door refrigerator and a Kenwood chef. They also have another sister, who drives her own car and whose husband owns a small garment factory.

Kanthi and her husband work on an estate. They live in a comfortable house with electricity, provided by the estate owners. Kanthi even had a sewing machine and TV gifted to her. They do not lack food except for meat as the fruits and vegetables grow on the land surrounding their homestead. They were Samurdhi recipients too who were dropped. But somehow Kanthi has managed to speak to the right people and is back on Samurdhi.

Piyasena works hard as a labourer. His daily income is assured. If he or his family is in need of assistance, the family his parents served, would not turn them away. He has a daughter who has graduated and now works in the private sector. She has built them a home and pays the mortgage. Piyasena is on Samurdhi and is steeped in debt. However much he is assisted to get out of his financial problems he keeps falling in. Why?

Perhaps it is a reflection of our present day culture that makes us feel that we can never have enough and the fear of having nothing that makes us want to cling to something.

Leopard at our doorstep
By Cecil Dharmasena

It was around 8'clock that sultry night when the cook of a private bungalow bordering the forest reserve, stepped out of the kitchen. In the gloom he noticed a huge dog-like animal creeping up to the pet dog sleeping on the doormat at the far end of the passage which led to the open back door. Taking the broom, the old man swiped at the huge animal. With a low growl and a blood curdling snarl that exposed long white fangs, the leopard jumped back into the garden and in a trice was gone. And only then did the cook realize with horror that he had inadvertently tangled with a leopard and almost got himself killed in the process.

The rare Alsatian belonging to the family of the late E.L. Senanayake was not so lucky. One morning, the Senanayake family missed their expensive pet. Outside the kitchen door of their bungalow which bordered the forest, were a set of clear pug-marks (footprints) of a huge leopard. A few days later, remains of what appeared to be those of a dog were found in a cave deep within the forest.

Leopards will go out of their way to capture dogs (even walking into houses) which seem to be their favourite prey, as we found out first hand last December.

While staying at the Forest Department bungalow at Ohiya, which borders the Horton Plains reserve, we were disturbed by a huge commotion by the kitchen door. The caretaker's dogs were barking frenziedly and suddenly, a leopard pounced on one of them just as the caretaker's wife brought out our dinner from the kitchen. The poor woman almost dropped the dishes and in the melee that followed, the dog managed to tear itself free while we all made the biggest possible din. The dogs were locked up in the rear verandah thereafter while the leopard tried to get at them several times over the next hour. It was a thrilling experience.

Dunumadalawa (or Wakara-watta or Walker estate, as it has been known for decades) is a forest reserve overlooking Kandy and part of it falls within municipal limits. This area (about 480 hectares) forms the catchment of two reservoirs (fed by the two main streams - the Dunumadala Oya and Roseneath-ela) which augment the water supply to the city. This unique rain forest extends from above Hillwood College and through the Hantana range of hills, on towards Galaha. It is a large area interspersed with tiny hamlets and tea estates and with sufficient range for several leopards. The pug-marks of a female and two cubs had been seen by several villagers along the numerous streams up on the hills. Over an year ago, my son and several other students who were doing their science field projects within the reserve, came across the pug-marks of a large leopard alongside the remains of a freshly killed porcupine. The boys took plaster casts of the prints and estimated (according to an acceptable formula) that the leopard was 6 1/2 to 7 feet in length. Numerous partly eaten kills of wildboar, barking deer and porcupine have been seen by the forest guards from time to time.

Reports of attacks on cattle and other livestock were frequent from many villages around the forest. Therefore, it was surmised that there were several leopards, both male and female, roaming this area. Since leopards, especially adult males, are highly territorial, each male will have its own distinct range while the ranges of females are smaller and may overlap those of several males. Each animal jealously guards its range from rivals.

Stories of leopard attacks around the forest were well-known and a few years ago while in charge of the Environment and Forestry Division of the Mahaweli Authority, I spread the word around that any leopard incidents or sightings were to be reported to me immediately. There was quite a response but most information came rather late with all evidence having been obliterated.

Then we received a message from a nature club student at a school in Ampitiya that a goat had been killed in a village known as Puliyadde. The news being hot, we took off immediately to investigate. Puliyadde is a tiny hamlet on the Ampitiya-Uduwela road close to Bogahalanda estate. Having gone down a narrow Road about two kilometres from Puliyadde, we walked down a hill along a narrow footpath, to an isolated little hut bordering a paddy field. Across the paddy field was forest extending over a rocky hill beyond which lay Ambalamana estate. The sole occupant of the neat little hut was a bearded man who lived alone with his chickens, a cow, a goat and a pig. The previous night while sleeping he had heard a commotion just outside his hut. All his animals, including the chickens, were in a flap. He opened his window and flashed a torch outside to see a large leopard astride the fallen goat. The brave man quickly came out and managed to shoo the leopard away. But the poor goat, his prized possession, was dead, bitten through the neck.

We were shown the blood patches on the ground and the rock by the paddy field behind the hut on which the leopard had stood for awhile, snarling at the man in the light of the torch, before reluctantly bounding away into the forest beyond the paddy field, probably to look for a meal elsewhere. The villager showed us the rock and indicated the length of the animal. It appeared to be quite a large specimen.

Far inside Dunumadalawa forest is an old derelict bungalow which had been the original Superintendent's bungalow of Walker estate. This private property is known as the walauwwa. A caretaker and his family live there with their cows and dogs.

One night, frenzied barking by the dogs brought the occupants out and there in the garden, was a large leopard, standing boldly and eyeing the cow that was tethered outside. The cow was promptly taken into a planked enclosure. The alert dogs had saved its life. The caretaker had seen the leopard many times and one of his cows had been killed and taken away earlier. According to him, leopards are heard quite often at night. These animals are large with fairly thick coats, a characteristic of upcountry leopards due to the cold weather in these hills, especially at night. In Horton Plains too, these animals have very thick fur on their coats unlike their dry-zone cousins and they look much larger due to the layer of fat developed to ward off the cold.

Dunumadalawa forest reserve is approached along Rajapihilla Mawatha above the lake and at the popular look-out point above Hillwood College (known as Arthur's Seat), one has to turn up into Kirthi Sri Rajasingha Mawatha (formerly Roseneath Road), which winds its way up the hill with a spectacular view of the city, the lake and the Dalada Maligawa far below. The Udawattakele forest reserve behind the Maligawa and the distant Dumbara range (Knuckles hills) and the Hunnasgiriya and Matale hills in the far distance, form a purple-blue backdrop. On a clear morning, framed in a deep blue sky dotted with fleecy white clouds, there is no more enchanting sight to gladden one's heart.

At the end of the road, the entrance to Dunumadalawa Forest Reserve comes into view. A large signboard gives a description of the forest and the activities designed to enhance the conservation effort. The Kandy Municipality, with the assistance of the Dunumadalawa Forest Conservation Society (an NGO formed solely for the protection of the forest) along with some limited funds from the World Bank Environment and Community Development Programme, has set up a beautiful and artistic Environmental Study Centre cum Visitor Centre at the imposing entrance structure built almost entirely on logs out of timber, this structure blends into the forest trees and thick undergrowth. While one checks out the indigenous species of fresh-water fish displayed there in well illuminated tanks or browses through the books in the fledgling library or looks around at the various specimens and photographs displayed, red monkeys play about on the roof and the calls of numerous birds and the incessant screech of cicades echo through the forest.

Just below the Study Centre, is the bungalow formerly occupied by the late T.B. Worthington of "Ceylon Trees" fame. As a schoolboy I can remember visiting him in the company of my father and being shown his awesome collection of plant specimens set in rows of glass cases - dried fruits, pressed flowers and leaves, all neatly labelled - the labour of love, of a lifetime. His book on "Ceylon Trees" yet remains a standard text for identifying almost all the endemic and introduced forest trees in the island.

With permission from the Waterworks Engineer of the Municipality or the OIC of the Catchment, one can walk in and spend a day there, observing birds, reptiles, butterflies, other insects, frogs, lizards or the ferns and mosses and of course the trees. Many species of various creatures are yet to be identified and scientists and students are most welcome to organize systematic surveys and research projects.

The Study Centre caters to groups of school children for whom training programmes, lectures and videos are arranged periodically. Nature walks are being organized, while nature trails are being opened up along with observation huts at selected look-out points. A plant nursery has also been set up within the reserve, initially to cater to an extensive tree planting campaign in the forest and in the city, but this will gradually become a commercially viable venture operated by the Municipality.

A giant "puswel" creeper, possibly the largest in the country, is found within the forest. In addition to leopards, the forest is home to one of the largest populations of barking deer (Muntjak or Olu-Muwa) mouse deer (Meeminna) and wild boar. An early morning walk along the Hantana track will reveal a half-dozen barking deer and several wild boar which are all well grown unlike their dry-zone cousins. In addition, porcupine, mongoose, Indian otter (Diya-Balla), flying squirrel (Hambewa), fishing cat (Koladiviya or Handun diviya) and of course red (Toque) monkeys (Rilawa) are quite common, the latter being a positive nuisance to residents of the area. Many types of snakes such as the Pala- polonga (green pit-viper) and the Thel-Karavala (krait) are common while there are huge specimens of water lizards (Kabaragoya) and pythons seen around the forest. An injured python was recently captured, treated and released back into the forest.

A pair of white-bellied sea eagles have built a nest on a tall Albizzia tree near the entrance. Large fish-owls abound around the reservoirs and are seen mostly in the late evenings. The grey-hornbill can be seen on tall trees while Sri Lanka's greatest song bird, the Ceylon Shama, sings to you every evening, its melodious notes echoing through the forest. The harsh call of the large stork-billed kingfisher (the largest of the king-fishers) brings one to attention around the reservoirs and along the streams.

Apart from the 80 odd species of birds identified here and the numerous large mammals and smaller animals prevalent, the forest floor is a haven for leeches, especially after the rains. The area receives much rainfall and the forest floor acts like a sponge, absorbing the water and slowly releasing it into numerous crystal clear springs that grow into small streams which finally empty into the reservoirs. The streams are home to several species of endemic fish which have yet to be studied.

Besides the Dunumadala Oya and Roseneath-ela there flows the Heelpan-kandura or Rajapihilla-ela which is historically famous. At its base is the famous king's bath where the Kings of Kandy used to bathe. The stone bath and carved spout yet remain, the area being overgrown and requiring the urgent attention of the Department of Archaeology. Below this historic edifice is the popular "Rajapihilla" bathing spot, its icy cold water attracting many people from around the area. The overflow from all these streams flow into the Kandy lake, replenishing the polluted water constantly.

On a recent evening, my son and some schoolmates were hiking down along the rocky Roseneath-ela, towards a rustic viewing platform being built at the edge of the Roseneath reservoir. The soft grunts of a leopard in the undergrowth alarmed them. The boys, well experienced foresters now, instantly knew that these were the low grunts of a female calling to its cubs, but it was getting dark and looking for a leopard with cubs in the gloom was too dangerous a proposition. At dawn next morning, the boys eagerly launched a search in the area. They were overjoyed at what they found. On the soft clay by the stream they discovered the clear pug-marks of the mother along with two tiny sets of prints of the two cubs.

The news was exciting and we were thrilled. Thrilled at the prospect of having so many of these magnificent big cats right at our doorstep - almost in the heart of Kandy. (The writer is the Chairman, Dunumadalawa Forest Conservation Project)

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