A drowning lagoon

By Derick Weerasooriya

From my early childhood days I had the privilege of visiting the village of Gurupokuna from where the lagoon is seen like an endless sea. A relative of mine, a well known Southern Province planter, the late Will Soysa, a man of classical taste, who had besides a keen eye for the beauty of nature, purchased a block of land on a hillock beside two gigantic rocks protruding towards the lake. There he had constructed a log cabin which had a panoramic view of the entire landscape. He had named it 'Shanthi-Sri', but we called it 'where the mountain, lake and sea meet', since the Haputale range of mountains appeared in the morning mist like a floating cloud, hundreds of miles away, across the placid waters at the crack of dawn, accompanied by the sweet songs of birds. The most inspiring sight was the golden sunrise from the sea and its rays striking the deep red plumage of the painted storks feeding in the lake. 

Apart from various other local and migratory birds, visitors from Siberia, was the grand sight of pelicans in formation, ascending upto the heavens without the movement of their wings, which is a rare sight. 

Gurupokuna village itself was thinly populated with a few mud huts. The village folk had taken to fishing and chena cultivation, growing crops like kurakkan, maize, cowpea etc. for their livelihood.

However, after the dawn of Independence and as the years rolled by, the original forests of Hungama, better known as the 'Mukalana jungles' which covered vast areas of Ranna, Angulukolapelassa and Gurupokuna were bulldozed periodically for the benefit of village expansion, causing changes in the weather patterns resulting in droughts. The scarcity of paddy during a certain stage in our recent history was so acute that the Govt. thought of getting it from the moon. It was then that some politicians had the bright idea of reclaiming half of the Kalametiya Lagoon into a smiling paddy field by preventing the flow of sea-water into the lagoon. A culvert was constructed which became the 'death knell' to all creatures living in the lake. The lagoon itself was doomed. The vast stretch of water gave way to the formation of a muddy, marshy land and the growth of Hambues (tall grass variety), a favourite breeding ground for leeches. 

What is seen today, although Kalametiya has been declared a bird sanctuary, are only scattered pools and a constant flow of excessive water winding its way from the Chandrika Weva entering into the sea through the constructed culvert. The prevailing drought had caused a fire in the dried-up lake creating further havoc and destruction to the little remaining bird life. Thus the curtain falls on a once famous and beautiful lake. 

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