Local environmental justice group complaints to UNESCO over illegal road construction inside Sinharaja

A local environmental justice group wrote to UNESCO world heritage office this week lodging a complaint over an illegal road construction inside Sinharaja World Heritage Site.

Ravindra Kariyawasam, National coordinator of Center Environment and Nature studies (CENS) wrote to the Headquarters of the World Heritage Office pointing out this road construction work is currently underway inside the buffer zone of the Sinharaja world heritage site in Lankagama area to Deniyaya.

“The construction work commenced on August 10 where Sri Lankan army engineering force is involved for this road construction on behalf of the Sri Lankan government. This is the same road that they started to build through Sinhraja world heritage in 2013. A complaint was sent to UNESCO world heritage office in 2013 and it has been stopped by UNESCO at that time,” he noted in the letter.

A group of environmentalists informed the Sri Lanka Forest department, President of Sri Lankan Government, Ministry of Environment and the Center for Environment authority. But no action was taken to stop the road construction.

Sinharaja Forest Reserve is the unique remaining virgin tropical rainforest in Sri Lanka. It is of international significance and has been designated as a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The hilly virgin rainforest, part of the Sri Lanka lowland rain forests Ecoregion, was saved from the worst commercial logging by its inaccessibility, and was designated as a World Biosphere Reserve in 1978 and a World Heritage Site in 1989.

According to IUCN’s Conservation Outlook Assessment (2017) the conservation status of Sinharaja Forest Reserve is of ‘significant concern’. The IUCN report notes that ‘The value of Sinharaja as a natural world heritage site continues to be recognized by the discovery of several endemic species of plants and animals since the declaration of this forest as a world heritage in 1988. Some of the recent discoveries include several species of herpetofauna that are restricted to the eastern region of Sinharaja”.

Mr Kariyawasam also requested the UNESCO office to take immediate action against this illegal road construction and help to protect this virgin forest land in Sri Lanka.