Wildlife Act to be amended

By Uditha Kumarasinghe

Sustainable Development and Wildlife Minister Gamini Jayawickrama Perera said that steps are being taken to amend the Wildlife Act of 1932 to fall in line with the changing times.

A committee has been appointed to amend the present Wildlife Act which is over 80 years old and make suitable recommendations, the Minister told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

“We have to look into international agreements and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) when effecting amendments to the Act. We have to abide by the international law on endangered species,” he said. The CITES is an international agreement between Governments to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants do not threaten their survival. This year, the CITES Conference will be held in South Africa from September 24 to October 5.

“Our biggest problem is that the Wildlife Ministry was corrupt in the past. Various complaints had been made against the officials by politicians and they became helpless. Some of them had got into trouble as a result of various Commission Reports,” the Minister said.

According to the Minister, the number of tourist arrivals in the country would be around 2.5 million by the end of this year. Sri Lanka had recorded 1.8 million tourist arrivals last year. In 2015, the Wildlife Ministry had remitted Rs. 3,500 million to Government coffers. At present, the Ministry is faced with a shortage of approximately 1,500 workers including the marine sector.

“I have submitted a Cabinet paper in this regard. We can’t run national parks without an adequate number of workers.

For example, if we take Minneriya National Park, it has only 12 trackers while its daily income exceeds Rs. 3 million. Nearly 300 vehicles visit Minneriya daily. The situation in Yala and other National Parks is more or less the same,” he said. The Minister said that the Wildlife Ministry generates an income of Rs. 22 million per day and that this will exceed Rs. 25 million by end of this year.