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| Sunday, 5 June 2005 |
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Plans afoot to manage our waters by Thava Sajitharan Water is sine quo non. While excessive intrusion of it such as in the forms of tsunami', floods etc. poses a lethal threat to living beings, scarcity of water too causes severe crisis all around the world. For these reasons one can easily perceive that water is an indispensable resource without which virtually nothing on earth can be viable or extant. Nowadays, with the formidable growth of interference and influence by human beings on nature, quality of the water has become a major concern, apart from the equal importance of its quantity. Consumption of poor quality water has resulted in health hazards. Hence the resources of water ought to be managed and preserved appropriately. Water preservation in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka has a history of water preservation and management. Its ancestors are thankfully hitherto remembered for their well planned irrigation systems and structures. The central region of Sri Lanka, comprised of massif, rivers and streams, received (as it still does) high rainfall benefiting almost all other regions in the country. The hill country remained covered by dense forest until the British merchants arrived and controlled the island. It was for them the aesthetically appealing mountains and rivers appeared more suitable for trading and enslaving. They were capable enough to impose a new trading trend, diminishing the importance of the erstwhile practised subsistence agriculture, shifting it to commercial plantation. And if it is questioned whether this tiny sketch on 'British plantation' deviates from the aimed subject of 'watershed management', 'no, it doesn't', was the response. Adverse effects on Upper watersheds Paradoxically plantation of tea and other commercial plants has an adverse impact on present 'watershed management'. An ironic post colonial impact on nature! Such and similar facts were revealed at the two-day workshop on 'Integrated watershed management' held under Upper Watershed Management Project at Environment Authority auditorium last week. As the highest rainfall receiving central highland was opened up for cultivation of export crops like cocoa and tea, and trees of were felled for the export of timber to UK, whereby the land lost the protective cover and was exposed to soil erosion often resulting in disasters like landslides. It led to the reduction of land areas that the farmers used for cultivation as the soil filled up the man made reservoirs forcing the farmers to shift. After such external disturbances, perennial streams became seasonal, flowing only during monsoon periods. Replacement of forest cover with the tea plantation was in fact the removal of 'water buffer zone' that earlier absorbed most of the rainfall and fed the streams and rivers. Now the rainfall feeds straight into these rivers and streams as run-off water, which along with them carry a large amount of fertile soil. With this, increasing unplanned human settlement, improper management of tea estates and soil erosion of land meant for agriculture were also alarming threats that inevitably bring in land degradation. The workshop In the workshop on watershed management, it was pointed out that 'the Upper Watershed Management Project (UWMP) was launched in 1998 to fulfil the need'. At present we have a 'National Watershed Management Policy' approved by the Cabinet, which defines watershed as "a geo-hydrologic area, which catches, stores and discharges water through common drainage point". The workshop was mainly aimed to 'propose an institutional framework for program development, administration and monitoring of the sustainable management of watersheds', held through the participation and contributions of scholars like Prof. C. M. Madduma Bandara (Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya), Prof. Ananda N. Jayakody (Department of Soil Science, Peradeniya), Prof. Kapila Dahanayake (Department of Geology, Peradeniya), Dr. H. M. D. Herath (Department of Sociology, Peradeniya) and personnel from various entities concerned in this field. Speaking at the workshop Environment and Natural Resources Minister, A. H. M. Fowzie highlighted 'the need of an umbrella organization ' which "should not be another institution but with authority to address the issues". In announcing the conclusions and findings it was recommended that such institution be comprised of few knowledgable persons and be an independent body. It was also proposed that a law controlling issues related to watershed management be formed and enacted. Another interesting concern that the Project Director of UWMP D. P. Munaweera alluded about during his presentation on objectives of the workshop is of the gaps between plans and implementations and laws and enforcements. The facts contained in this article were derived, with appreciation, from the outcomes of the workshop held last week on 'Integrated Watershed Management' conducted by the ministry of Environment and Natural Resources'. |
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