Steps to protect Yala National Park from environmental pollution

by Sajitha Prematunge

The Paada Yathra from the North and the East, through Yala to Kataragama ended last Sunday with the Esala Full Moon Poya. But it left a trail of intense environmental problems in its wake.

With the liberation of the East more and more pilgrims from the North flocked to the Kataragama Maha Dewala and shrines such as Okanda in the outskirts of Yala. Disturbance to the normalcy of the park by such a vast number of people could not be completely averted. Every year pilgrims from as far as Jaffna and Batticaloa commence their Paada Yathra passing through Panama, Kumana, Okanda Dewala, reaching Yala block one, Aliwadiya, crossing Kumbukkan Oya and from there to Kataragama spending over two months along the way, camping at sites such as Baguray Pittiya and along the bank of Kumbukkan Oya, to ultimately attend the annual Okanda Malai Murugan Dewala and Kataragama Maha Dewala festivals.

This is a ritual with a long history running into centuries. It is of great cultural significance for the Hindus. Therefore it cannot and should not be prevented because of the environmental impact.

With the liberation of the East, the authorities were expecting an increase in the number of pilgrims coming through Yala.

With the impending festive season the Department of Wildlife Conservation was eager to minimise the ill-effects to the Yala National Park.

The DWC banned polythene inside the park and no vehicles were permitted in the park except their own and those of NGOs. But the Assistant Park Warden, B. S. Samarasinghe accepted that it's not entirely practical, with the very limited number of staff.

Handouts, in Tamil, were distributed during the Paada Yathra to educate the pilgrims and the park has already despatched three teams to conduct clean up programmes.

He said that volunteers from various NGOs and other organizations are also on the way. But with such a massive number of pilgrims, maintaining strict control has proven impossible. Director General DWC, Ananda Wijesuriya told the Sunday Observer that this year's Paada Yathra turned up with an unprecedented 19,106 pilgrims according to the statistics of the STF in comparison to the approximate 15,000 last year.

Under these circumstances monitoring has been extremely difficult, even with the additional staff, the DWC appointed, in order to cope with the large number of pilgrims they were expecting.

Moreover the total land allocated for Protected Areas is 900,000 hectares, and the DWC field staff is only 900.

That's thousand hectares per person.

The other major obstacle was communication. Most of the pilgrims only spoke Tamil, and most of the officers spoke only Sinhala. And very few might have actually understood the intention of the hand outs.

[email protected]