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| Sunday, 15 January 2006 |
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Features |  |
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Mother
nature... The right to live
by Dilini Algama Gonawala, if you ask me, is really an obscure little village. It's
neither the metropolitan Kiribathgoda, nor is it the historical Kelaniya,
but it lies
Livelihoods Now this land has all the makings of a mini-civilisation. It has a small stream running throughout it. It's about 5 feet deep and both the stream and the water- hole have fish in it. Loola, hunga, kavaiyya, madakariya, magura, dandiya, batta, pethiyo, walapottha, kanaya, ipilla and freshwater prawns are all edible fish you'll find here. Sarath the village handy man (cum know-it-all) can usually be seen standing still in the bamboo bushes with a fishing rod extending to the water. The fish he catches could be for his meal, but most often he sells them for an additional income as he is a day labourer. He looks around thoughtfully and tells me that it is in the stream the women immerse their coconut branches (pol athu) to soften for weaving them to be sold for roofing. Bandusena ayya, John ayya ("John" here is pronounced to rhyme with "bone") who rear cattle use this stream and the water hole during the dry season. Then there is Thomas ayya (Thomas is pronounced to rhyme with "Moses" here) and Suneetha who sell kohila dalu, kebella dalu and other green leaves (for mallung) to nearby households to earn her livelihood. Children Then there are the neighbourhood children who swarm the place when the school holidays come and during every evening. Over at the kamatha (the bare land where they stacked the gathered harvest at one time) they play, cricket, elle (sort of like baseball) and volleyball. Come August, they fly kites in the paddy land and during April when trees bear fruit most of the children could be seen (and heard) up the many goraka trees. All those fruits named in our old Sinhalese songs can be found here. One can suppose that all this have kept these children healthy and off hard drugs. Trees and flowers Then there are ever so many trees, flowers, birds and animals. There are dhavata trees which are so tall. Their branches magnificent and their roots form mosses. There are the various medicinal plants and someone is always collecting roots, leaves, flowers or bark for a kasaya or patthura. There are three books written about flowers in our country. There is ' Wild flowers of Ceylon' published by Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, 'Flowers of Sri Lanka' by Kottegoda and ' Flowers of Ceylon' by Dorothy Fernando, and the last book is out of print and is a collector's item. The second book is four thousand rupees. But don't you despair, you can always come along to Batadombagahakumbura because trees, shrubs and vines of beautiful wild flowers grow here. Birds You also get birds here. Storks, herons, water hens, purple swamp hens, brilliantly coloured Bee-Eaters, hawks and eagles, doves, parrots, owls, stork-billed kingfishers (the largest on the island) and your ordinary kingfishers, barbets, woodpeckers, the Indian pitta, wagtails, bulbuls, flycatchers (suduredi hora and sivuru hora), drongos, sparrows and munias can always be seen here. We get a female with olive coloured wings, but it's certainly an honour don't you think? And to say nothing of the Black-hooded Oriole kaba kurulla which comes in a beautifully striking yellow colour. The number of Black-headed oriolets have increased lately. Animals If squirrels are too ordinary for you, think of foxes, porcupines, mongooses, frogs, hares, water monitors, iguanas, sivet cats and who knows, just like Geoffrey Bawa saw in "Lunuganga" you might also see leopards and centaurs here. Batadombagahakumbura retains the overflowing water of the Kelani river. During the recent floods it was bad enough with people not being able to use even public transport to go to work or even to a hospital. Water retention land But that was with the excess water flowing into this paddy land. If this too were to be filled up and sold off, where would the overflowing waters go? Although you've always wanted lake front property this is not quite the sort of lake front property you'd want. According to Architect Errol D. Siriwardene water retention land was best preserved during the Portuguese period. It was because they understood the importance of water retention land when it came to Sri Lanka's severe monsoon rains and flooding. But why am I writing all this? It's because the real-estate people who have acquired Batadombagahakumbura are bulldozing the place to be filled up with rubbish and soil to be sold off in 10-perch chunks to unsuspecting individuals with fancy misleading names like Paradise Garden, Heaven's Gates, Fairyland and what not (not the individuals' names mind you). To whom can I appeal? The Minister of Forestry and Environment Hon. Maithreepala Sirisena - could you please keep the government's promise not to fill up unused paddy land? I also appeal to the IUCN, Wildlife and Nature Protection Society, all environmental NGOs, the forest department and wildlife trust to do all they can to declare Batadombagahakumbura and neighbouring unused paddy land a bird or wildlife sanctuary as was the Attidiya wel yaya in Dehiwala. After all, human rights is not only about torture in prison cells, it's also about the right to live. In case you didn't notice Batadombagahakumbura is in my backyard and I can't bear to listen to the grating noise of their electric chainsawy slices through trees in ten seconds and those took years to grow to reach their sky-grazing heights. |
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somewhere in between and it's most certainly there. If you take
this footpath here, you will get to the uncultivated paddy land I'm writing
about. It's called Batadombagahakumbura. You will see miles and miles of
tall green grass (about 50 acres if you are fussy about details). 
