Monday, 17 January 2005, Colombo, Centre for Environmental Justice commends the recent decision of the Government of Sri Lanka to ban constructions within a 100 m coastal zone around the country and 200 m zone in the North and Eastern province. We also commends the decision to regulate the new construction in a 700 meter zone beyond the 300 m wide coastal zone declared under the Coast Conservation Act No 57 of 1981 as amended No 64 of 1988.

We are aware that 4.88 millions of people live in the coastal belt in a land area of 4%. This was the major reason for the heavy damage. However we would like to point out that the Coast Conservation Department could not enforce the law although they were having the set back of 35-100 meter for more than a decade because of the political pressure and the pressure from the local communities.

According to our observation, the damage is very high in the areas where there is no green belt, where the mangroves have been removed and coral reefs were heavily destroyed and where the coastal set back was not protected. Local people, hoteliers and certain politicians are responsible for this damage. Government agencies are also responsible for this since they did not enforce the law. There were number of instances that public interest organisation opposed the coral mining and construction of hotels etc.

Although we do not expect any more tsunamis, hurricanes or sea level rise can also hit the coastal belt. We believe that we should have a preparedness plan, evacuation plan and tsunami inundation mapping and warning system for our future protection.

We now see that certain politicians are trying to disturb and oppose the decision for the establishment of a 100 meter no construction zone which costs us many lives. As per our information this decision was unanimously agreed by all the political parties. Therefore we urge all the political parties, local communities and the hoteliers to respect this decision.

Hemantha Withanage,
Executive Director/ Environmental Scientist
Centre for Environmental Justice