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| Sunday, 9 February 2003 |
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SL for prioritising socio-economic targets Excerpts of address by Environment and Natural Resources Minister Rukman Senanayake at 9th Commonwealth Consultative Group Environment Meeting held at UNEP Headquarters, Nairobi, Kenya on February 4, 2003. As we embark to the scale of greater heights in the 21st century, critical issues the world will face are with regard to the environment, shrinking forest cover, falling depleting groundwater, soil erosion, rising earth temperature and sea levels, changing weather patterns resulting in drought and floods, loss of bio-diversity, desertification, and air and water pollution have become seemingly insurmountable problems. The unsustainable exploitation of natural resources due to burgeoning population is one of the root causes for these problems. It has been realised that given the magnitude of these emerging environmental and associated, social and political threats, which are universal in nature, no individual nation, be in developed or developing could tackle them alone. At this CCGE meeting Sri Lanka would like to emphasize her support for prioritising time-bound actions needed to achieve desired Socio-Economic targets which include reduction in poverty, enhanced economic and development activity through means as improving technical skills and quality of the workforce, and improvements to health, education and literacy in near future activities and action plans for implementation. As responsible governments we also face tensions between needs of the environment and needs of development. We should consider meeting the basic needs of the people such as provisions of safe drinking water, adequate sanitary facilities, efficient and reliable transport, electricity, housing and employment opportunities for all as part of satisfying environmental requirements. development with bio-diversity Sri Lanka has already initiated preparation of National Bio-safety Guidelines and appreciates the Commonwealth involvement in this area of great importance especially to tropical nations like Sri Lanka. The Commonwealth has made its desire for a sustainable development with bio-diversity as one of its priorities clear, especially through promoting activities such the ones under Iwokrama Rain Forest Program in Guyana, Commonwealth Forestry Initiative (CFI) of India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and the Pan-Commonwealth Training Package on Women and Natural Resource Management. Sri Lanka being a relatively small Island State understands the grievances of other smaller and politically less influential Islands States in their efforts to mitigate their regional environmental problems caused mainly by irresponsible actions of much larger or industrialised countries, such as the ones resulting from the transport of nuclear and hazardous materials off their coastal waters, sea level rise due to climate change and macro-level decision making of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that result in undesirable impacts on the exports of smaller states hindering their development. Climate change appears to be a serious issue. Sri Lanka too is impacted by effects of climate change. Bleaching of our corals, erosion of beaches and coastal lands, drop in agricultural crop yield particularly in rice, tea, coconut and rubber, and extreme weather events that lead floods or drought. Thus initiatives like the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation that supported Pacific Island member states of the South Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) and 1994 Barbados Program of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island States are much appreciated and such activities will always receive Sri Lanka's fullest support. environmental problems We believe that if that if we join in building a better environment for tomorrow, it can definitely help finding solutions to some of these social, economic and environmental problems including the ones created by armed rebellious groups that are spreading terrorism around the world today. We therefore have to work co-operatively as partners of the global nations through international bodies such as the Commonwealth Consultative Group on Environment (CCGE), UNEP, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), World Health Organisation (WHO). I wish to thank the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Honourable Ministers, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and all other participants for making 9th session of the Commonwealth Consultative Group on Environment here in Nairobi a success. |
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