Oct 02 2014 (IPS) UNITED NATIONS- Sri Lanka will host the World Biodiversity Congress (WBC) Nov. 24-27. Given its long and active history of preserving biodiversity, it would be most appropriate for Sri Lanka to be the next host of this global event, which also marks the U.N.'s Decade on Biodiversity.
The world is confronting massive threats to its biological resources due to climate change, pollution, agricultural chemical usage and pest control, land degradation, deforestation, unbridled development, indiscriminate harvesting of wild stocks, uncontrolled slaughter, accumulating waste, in particular, slow degrading waste, etc.
Sri Lanka, while sharing many of the problems of other countries, remains strongly committed to the environment. It is no surprise that it is a party to many of the major international agreements that address environmental issues, especially biodiversity.
Sri Lanka ratified the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1994. In 1979, it became a party to the 1973 Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (commonly known as the Bonn Convention) and the 1973 Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The decision adopted by CITES in 1989, in Lausanne, banning the trade in ivory is strictly adhered to by Sri Lanka.
These international agreements have been implemented in Sri Lanka through its own domestic efforts to protect its extensive biodiversity, which is considered to be a unique national asset. Sri Lanka boasts of many endemic species and diverse ecosystems in both its terrestrial and marine environments.
Sri Lanka's uniquely diverse range of ecosystems range from the wet and semi-dry highlands to the low-lying coast. There are grasslands, wetlands, many types of forests, including wet-zone, dry-zone and mangrove forests, lagoons, and coral reefs.
Furthermore, Sri Lanka, a country of only 65,000 square kilometres, is home to a staggering number of species of animals - some of which are endemic.
There are 91 known species of mammals, 171 species of reptiles and over 106 species of amphibians, 90 of which are endemic. Sri Lanka may be the only country in which you can see both the Earth's largest land mammal (the elephant, close to 6,000 remain in the wild according to the last count) as well as its largest marine mammal (blue and humpback whales) within a few hours of each other.
From the Sri Lankan leopard to the delicate Ceylon Rose butterfly, Sri Lanka possesses a larger percentage of endemic species than almost any other country of similar or larger land mass and is listed as a global biodiversity hotspot by the IUCN.
Protecting its biodiversity at a national level has been a key challenge and a series of measures have been taken to protect elephants, a prized national asset, including through providing two refuges for orphaned calves and facilitating captive breeding.
The country boasts a long history of training elephants for religious, commercial and domestic purposes. Elephants play a key role in Peraheras (Buddhist religious processions) where they carry the sacred relics of the Buddha with great dignity.
The annual Kandy Perahera could feature over one hundred caparisoned elephants regally parading through the streets of the ancient city of Kandy by torchlight.
7 comments:
My Comment at LankaWeb.com:
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douglas,
You mentioned Lee Kwan Yew who, under presssure by the Tamils of Singapore, recently criticized Sri Lanka for denying the “democratic rights” of Tamils.
Lee Kwan Yew is the last person on earth entitled to criticize others on “democratic rights”. The way he transformed Singapore into an economic success was NOT by fostering “democratic rights”, but by forcing people to conform to his dictatorial policies, in a way that would never be tolerated in Sri Lanka without a massive uproar.
He did not allow ethnic diversity to transform into ethnic tolerance by itself in a laissez faire manner, but enforced ethnic integration with crushing force on Singaporeans by quashing all dissent with overwhelming force. He enforced social and civil discipline on the people of Singapore through Draconian laws, in every aspect of their lives, in education, in work prohibiting trade unions, in housing, etc etc. Even tourists had to comply …. hippies with long hair were denied entry to Singapore, and whipped before being deported, and the penalty for possessing and bringing drugs into Singapore was death.
Nevertheless, on the balance, Lee Kwan Yew’s policies where OVERWHELMINGLY beneficial to the people of Singapore and transformed Singapore into the envy of the world. Singapore was very sick when it separated from Malaya, and required radical surgery to survive, and Lee Kwan Yew was the surgeon who saved it.
That is the point I was also trying to make earlier with respect to MR and the UPFA Govt of Sri Lanka: serious national illness requires radical surgery, otherwise the patient will die. Should we demonize Lee Kwan Yew for his denial of “full democratic rights” to his people and not allowing them to continue as a disorganized rabble forever condemned to poverty, or should we honor him for his accomplishment in dragging Singapore by its collar into modernity as a thriving and decent place for people to live?
MR’s UPFA Govt of Sri Lanka first defeated a 30-year long terrorist rampage, reunified the nation and restored Sri Lanka’s crown to its hallowed head. Now MR’s UPFA GOSL is dragging Sri Lanka by the scruff of its skinny neck into the modern age before the next move of our enemies closes that window of opportunity. The sense of urgency is palpable.
Meanwhile, many congenital idiots and assorted anti-national elements in our country, in their incurable greed for wealth and power, and their jealousy of those who are finally doing the right things for the country, are blowing up every molehill into a mountain, are collaborating with Sri Lanka’s enemies, and are doing everything they can to undermine the effort by the patriotic forces of Sri Lanka to raise our nation to an unassailable, impregnable position in the future.
These anti-national scum should instead be asking for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for them, because the people of Sri Lanka will not allow anyone to cheat them of their glorious destiny.
My Comment from LankaWeb.com
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douglas,
You did NOT understand correctly what I said.
I did NOT say “corruption is everywhere in the world, so don’t blame only the Sri Lanka Government.”
But, I DID say
1. Corruption exists in every government everywhere in the world; wherever humans exercise political power, corruption emerges as a fact of life,
2. yet, many of those FLAWED governments (I listed some of them), on balance, have OVERWHELMINGLY benefited the people of their nations,
3. MR’s UPFA GOSL is one such government, that on balance, has OVERWHLEMINGLY benefited, and is CONTINUING to benefit, the people of Sri Lanka, and therefore,
4. we should not undermine such a government because of those flaws, and THROWOUT the BABY with the BATHWATER, because the ALTERNATIVES are far worse!
Shakespeare wrote the play “Julius Caesar”, but it was Mark Antony in that play who repeated during his funeral oration at the Forum in Rome for Julius Caesar, his mentor that “Brutus is an honourable man” implying that he was in fact not an honourable for he had betrayed Caesar’s love and trust.
Julius Caesar had just been murdered, and Mark Antony wanted to incite the Roman public to rise up against the assassins led by Brutus, Cassius and others who were jealous of Caesar’s accomplishments and his rise to greatness.
Mark Antony came upon the murder scene, and instead of being also killed as a confidant of Caesar, was granted a few minutes permission at his request by the assassins “to bury Caesar, not to praise him”.
It is the CLASSIC example of a strategic mistake made by a group of conspirators at the moment of their triumph that resulted in their ultimate downfall. It is also a CLASSIC example of how an able man, endowed with courage and the gift of eloquence, can seize the opportunity to turn the tables on his enemies, from the weakest of positions.
This CLASSIC ORATION is worth reading again and again, so here it is for your enjoyment.
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Chapter 3, Scene 2:
Mark Antony’s Funeral Oration for Julius Caesar on the steps of the Forum in Rome
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
[He weeps]
But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there.
And none so poor to do him reverence.
O masters, if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable men:
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honourable men.
But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar;
I found it in his closet, ’tis his will:
Let but the commons hear this testament–
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read–
And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood,
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.
Nanda and Marco,
While you wander about aimlessly, like Cassius, recounting Mahinda Rajapaksa’s alleged “deficiencies” and “ambitions” in minute and exquisite detail, wonder about this too:
That Caesar had just returned from the battle front after saving Rome from invading enemies, only to be assassinated at the foot of Pompey’s statue by his fawning “friends”, sedentary “senators” and fellow countrymen incurably jealous of his accomplishments.
If you are familiar with “Julius Caesar” you would know about the “lean and hungry” look of Cassius who whispered treason in alleyways poisoning the hearts of Caesar’s associates and orchestrating that assassination.
Like Julius Caesar, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has saved his country from its enemies, and is now engaged in battle to make Sri Lanka properous and impregnable, but yet he is now assailed by “lean and hungry” jealous men who want to belittle his accomplishments, assassinate his character, and question his motives.
I say shame on all you self-serving ingrates, all you men without honor, all you “lean” men “hungry” for power, all slavishly serving foreign paymasters and local political opponents, all attempting with every sinew to tear down the one leader in post-independence Sri Lanka who had the ability, skill and courage to restore sovereignty to our Motherland, and our national pride to us as Sri Lankans. SHAME ON YOU !
RECONCILIATION as currently understood and being pursued in Sri Lanka is UNNECESSARY, UNWISE, and is a slap in the face to those tens of thousands of VICTIMS of LTTE terror.
The ONLY RECONCILIATION NECESSARY is for those who supported the LTTE terror that are still living to CONFESS, and beg FORGIVENESS from the VICTIMS of that terror, and be PUNISHED appropriately. Anything short of that is merely a TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE that condones the CRIMES of murderous criminals and unrepentant TRAITORS.
Did the Victorious Allies in World War II pursue RECONCILIATION of this kind and APOLOGIZE to the defeated Nazis and the peoples of the Axis Nations who caused the deaths, and unspeakable crimes against innocent people?
Did we hear of any APOLOGIES offered by the Allied powers for the conventional carpet bombing of Germany and Japan, and the Nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that killed millions or people and injured tens of millions more in those countries, but yet was deemed necessary for the defeat of those criminal regimes?
No, we DID NOT! All we had were war crimes trials held against the Nazis, the war time leaders of Japan and Italy, because they were the AGGRESSORS who unleashed those wars and perpetrated those crimes. Everthing those CRIMINALS SUFFERED in retaliation was declared WELL-DESERVED RETRIBUTION.
So it should be in the 30 year civil war that was waged in Sri Lanka against the LTTE.
The EELAM War in Sri Lanka, was waged with the utmost ferocity and cruelty by the LTTE, and most of their victims were civilians. The leaders of the LTTE, who survived the well deserved retribution in the last Phase of that war, and those who aided and abetted them to pursue their genocidal war and ethnic cleansing, must be arrested, indicted, prosecuted, convicted and punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Let there be no further talk of RECONCILIATION with these murderers and criminals; there should only be PUNISHMENT of their CRIMES!
Eliminating the Executive Presidency would be a mistake irrespective of whether the Tamil Diaspora gives up the Eelam Project.
Parliamentary systems, such as Britain's, are inherently weaker that governments with Executive Presidencies, such as those of the USA and France. Countries that have faced existential threats know that, and will not give up their existing Executive Presidencies, or will adopt an Executive Presidency to protect their nations.
Even in Sri Lanka, we recall that when Chandrika Bandaranaike was the Executive President, she dissolved and dismissed the UNP government of the country, imposed Presidential rule, and called for new elections to elect a new government, because the UNP government was poised to sign an agreement with the LTTE separatist movement that would have resulted in DE-FACTO PARTITION of the country into two separate states.
That was RESCUE of Sri Lanka as a UNITARY nation was possible only because Sri Lanka had an Executive President at that time willing and empowered to protect the territorial integrity of the nation.
Furthermore, given that Sri Lanka has just survived a 30 year war that threatened its very existence, and faces long-term threats from neighboring countries, a global network of separatists, and a devious phalanx of Neocolonialist Western Powers pursuing their own agendas inimical to Sri Lanka, it would be TRULY ASININE to give up the Executive Presidency.
Therefore, let us DISMISS OUT-OF-HAND this DREAM of Sri Lanka's enemies to eliminate the Executive Presidency, and CONTINUE PERMANENTLY with KEEPING INTACT the existing Executive Presidency in Sri Lanka.
Where is every one its an important day
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