- Sri Lanka has more than its national crisis to consider
Today marks World Environment Day, the biggest international day for the environment. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and held annually since 1973, it has grown to be the largest global platform for environmental outreach. It is celebrated by millions of people across the world. #OnlyOneEarth is the campaign for World Environment Day 2022. It calls for collective, transformative action on a global scale to celebrate, protect, and restore our planet.
On a macro level, our planet is being ravaged by accelerated global warming and climate change, habitat loss and threats to its biodiversity, and pollution, which continues to poison our air, land, and water. There is much to be done to prevent reaching a tipping point we can’t recover from, and in order to make it through the next two decades and beyond unscathed, we need to transform our economies and societies to make them inclusive, fair, and more connected with nature. We must shift from harming the planet to healing it.
Sri Lanka’s economy is already in free-fall, and while we are struggling to survive day-to-day, we also need to be equally aware that in rebuilding and recovering, we don’t drive ourselves into an even darker corner further down the road by ignoring the needs of the planet.
Brunch reached out to some environmentalists for their perspective on what we need to take stock of this World Environment Day, and how Sri Lanka, while in the midst of an unprecedented crisis, can still prioritise our planetary future.
There is more than our economic crisis looming
Speaking to the Environmental Foundation Limited (EFL) Director and Wayamba University of Sri Lanka Senior Lecturer Dr. Sevvandi Jayakody, we were reminded that the environmental crisis that looms before us is global, and that globally, we need to come together to fight it.
Dr. Jayakody also explained that this year is supposed to see the 15th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 15) meet to determine the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, to set environmental targets for the next 30 years (until 2050), with specific goals to work towards for 2030. Drafts of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework have been prepared after extensive consultation with the scientific community and other stakeholders through the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), although the final review and final confirmation of this framework is still pending with the COP 15 having been postponed several times, partly due to the pandemic.
Some hallmarks of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework include protecting at least 30% of the world’s oceans and land, and providing a third of climate crisis mitigation through nature by 2030. Alongside the 2030 draft targets, new goals for the middle of the century include reducing the current rate of extinctions by 90%, enhancing the integrity of all ecosystems, valuing nature’s contribution to humanity, and providing the financial resources to achieve the vision. Before the framework’s adoption and during its implementation, the conservation community should raise the awareness of all governments and all stakeholders on the urgency to act effectively to meet these goals and secure the planet for the future.
Dr. Jayakody noted that Sri Lanka’s economic crisis and political unrest would indeed have a profound impact on how we could protect the environment, but stressed: “It is one planet, and everything’s connected,” adding that decisions taken globally would have their impacts on us, and we too had a responsibility to work to meet global environmental goals.
Being aware of our issues
The Pearl Protectors Coordinator Muditha Katuwawala shared his thoughts on World Environment Day, calling for more transparency and more environmental protections. Addressing some of the key environmental issues Sri Lanka faces, Katuwawala explained that one of our key marine environmental issues was overfishing and illegal fishing.
“Something that flies under the radar is that there are other countries also fishing in our waters and this increases the amount of resources we’re losing,” he shared, adding: “Right now, Sri Lanka has no capability to properly monitor and see what is going on. A lot of bottom trawling takes place compromising our sea bed and the sensitive ecosystems within it. There are also other destructive (and illegal) fishing practices like spearfishing and dynamite fishing.” Katuwawala also shared that whales off Sri Lanka’s coast were also frequently in danger of being hit by ships because shipping lines crossed whale habitats.
Terrestrially, sand mining, both from coastlines and river banks and from seabeds and riverbeds is also a key issue that Sri Lanka needs to resolve, as this leads to exponentially more erosion which in turn contributes to rising sea levels and global warming, and compromises both marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
Global warming too was something Katuwawala discussed: “Each year becomes the hottest year on record, and next year will be warmer still. There are lots of dead zones starting to form in our oceans, sea levels are rising, and the ocean is absorbing a lot of heat and becoming warmer, making it harder for marine life to survive. As a tropical country, and an island, we’re going to face the brunt of this. We also know there is a food shortage coming in the near future, and fishery will play a huge part in our food safety, but only if we do it sustainably and in a proper manner. If not, we will lose all of it. It’s high time we become more responsible in what we buy, and pay more attention to how what we buy makes its way to us.”
Speaking of the economic crisis and its impact on conservation, Katuwawala described how the crisis was creating a shift in how people relate to the environment. For example, there has been a decrease in our waste management capacities, especially in urban areas (for many reasons, from fuel availability to human resources) and this sees more waste being disposed of improperly – be it in canals, sewers, the sea or improperly handled in garbage dumps. Pollution in Sri Lanka is at a critical level, and Katuwawala also shared that he and his team have received reports of elephants scavenging from garbage dumps to get to discarded food. Unfortunately, elephants tend to eat such garbage whole, resulting in severe digestive issues from eating polythene bags and other non-food items in garbage.
Part of this problem lies in improper land management, land scarcity, and our growing population, the same factors that also contribute to the human-elephant conflict. “Sri Lanka’s land is finite, and there is an increase in monoculture farming, which is very intensive,” Katuwawala said, adding that monoculture is intensive not just in the amount of land water it absorbs but in how it damages the ecosystem and biodiversity surrounding it. Other forms of farming like aquaculture too have great potential to disrupt ecosystems and compromise biodiversity if not done properly, which, Katuwawala noted, happens often.
Deforestation is also a problem within Sri Lanka, and with the worsening economic crisis and lack of food, this is something we can expect to get worse before it gets better, Katuwawala explained, since there would be an increased demand for land to cultivate crops and food.
The impact of the crisis on the human aspect of conservation
Sharing his thoughts on how the crisis will shape how people interact with the environment and protect it, Katuwawala said that in the near future, there would be gaps in awareness, initiative, and the willingness of people to take action and protect the environment.
Referring to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which is a theory of motivation that states that five categories of human needs – physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualisation needs – dictate an individual’s behaviour, he said: “As a country, we were previously at level three on Maslow’s hierarchy – we were concerned with love and a sense of belonging, of being compassionate, aware, and speaking up for things we saw happening around us, and because of this, we were able to prevent a lot of detrimental things, because people spoke about it and campaigned. Now, many more people have far more urgent things to worry about. We used to be a high middle-income country, and now we have dropped down to a low-income country. Focus on conservation is decreasing as other priorities get highlighted and people struggle to survive.”
This shift in priorities can see something of a decline in environmental conservation engagement from the ordinary Sri Lankan, coupled with more environmental exploitation, and Katuwawala stressed that it was of vital importance to stop this from happening because, especially in Sri Lanka’s case, as an island, “if we don’t protect our environment, we have no other land to move to.”
Locally and globally, 2022 is a make or break year for conservation and the environment, from defining the post-2020 global biodiversity framework to keeping our heads above water as a country. Though it is incredibly hard, as we struggle to emerge from this latest crisis that is weighing us down, it is important to remind ourselves that we don’t want to emerge from this struggle only to face a bigger, much more global struggle. The theme of this year’s World Environment Day rings poignantly true – there is #OnlyOneEarth, and now, more than ever, is the time to protect it.
