AG's undertaking raises hope for protection of ‘Other State Forests’
Forests known as ‘other state forests’ (OSF) are in the spotlight since a circular in November 2020 transferred their administration from the Forest Department to district and divisional secretariats.
Environmentalists have gone to courts against the decision and during the last hearing on Wednesday
August 3, the Attorney General (AG) gave an undertaking that these forests would not be handed over to district administration, says environment lawyer Ravindranath Dabare.
When the Court of Appeal took up the case filed by the Center for Environment Justice (CEJ) on Wednesday, the AG said the Government would utilise only the lands that could not be considered forests. This promise was recorded as an ‘undertaking’ (which in legal terms means a promise to the court by a respondent), Mr. Dabare told the Sunday Times.
To clear doubts and confusion as regards the present circular that specifically mentions the ‘Other State Forests’, the court requested that a new circular be drafted and presented to the court at the next hearing, the lawyer said. This is a
positive outcome for the protection of the
OSF, said Mr. Dabare who is also the chairperson of CEJ.
Some forests in Sri Lanka are administered by the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) under different protected categories such as national parks, nature reserves, strict nature reserves, and sanctuaries. The Forest Department has forest reserves, conservation forests, and one national heritage wilderness area. The forests other than privately owned lands that are not part of this protected area network are named the ‘Other State Forests’.
The standalone coverage of OSF land is around 338,229 ha, or about 5% of the island's land area. The broader forested area including OSFs is estimated to be 772,379 ha -about 11.8% of the total land area. Some of the forests such as Gilimale and Nilgala are larger than 10,000 ha and are important habitats.
Prior to 2001, these ‘other state forests’ have been administered by the divisional secretariats. But considering the importance of these forests, OSFs were transferred under the protection of the Forest Department in 2001 through a special circular known as 05/2001. It is this circular that was invalidated by the new one.
Their Sinhala name ‘awashesha kele’ also known as ‘residual forests’ gives the wrong impression that these are not as valuable as the protected forests, but some of these, particularly those located in the wet zone are rich in biodiversity, say researchers. Some of these are already tagged as ‘Proposed Forest Reserves’ to be absorbed into the protected area network.
The major argument put forward by the government is that even the state lands that do not have forests cannot be released when they are with the Forest Department and this creates unnecessary delays in development work.
But senior environmental lawyer Jagath Gunawardana dismissed this claim saying provisions and guidance on releasing non-forest lands are already available through another circular issued in 2006. “Utilising already abandoned lands and increasing the productivity in agriculture are the way forward,” said Mr. Gunawardana dismissing the idea of giving forests for agricultural purposes.
Environmentalist Dinal Samarasinghe pointed out that Sri Lanka had set a goal to increase its forest cover to 32% by 2030. He said any move to cause forest destruction will also impact the country’s global commitments toward biodiversity conservation and climate change. This will account for equivalent to at least about 89 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions if these forests are destroyed, Mr. Samarasinghe told