On account of World Environment Day – 5th June, let us turn Sri Lanka into the BIODIVERSITY hotspot it truly is.

What with the most beautiful of everything you can't lose!

The excellent editorial today in the Mirror, link below is worth a read, to realize how much we still do not know about our own biodiversity. Look at my previous entry too, for pointers, as there are 10,000 types of moth that have yet to be discovered, and along with the dragonflies, butterflies, birds and the amphibians referred to in the link, we can be a study center for the preservation of life forms for the future.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/110452/Born-free-let-them-live-free-and-stay-free

Unless we make a rapid U turn, and it is clear from my education series published last week, we have an uneducated populace if properly educated, can be the curators of this heritage, and that alone will draw the environmentally conscious students of the world, and not the boozing beer bellies, and sex tourists we currently seem to draw.

Of course we have a long way to go, and if the recent floods are any indicator, we have a huge pollution garbage disposal problem that also needs to be solved along with it. Witness the floods in Paris today, far worse than ours, but the country is prepared, and there is NO garbage to clog the waterways, and prevent the flow of water and cause a health hazard.

If we have a positive attitude and our leaders live by example, then the people will follow. It is therefore very important that our leaders sacrifice their personal agendas, in favor of the Nations.

We are currently in the debate about policy the Country must adopt, and if Biodiversity and reversal of Environmental degradation are at the top of the agenda, we can never lose. We both preserve the space in the rural areas for the people and the flora and fauna, so that they can continue to live cleanly, and we don’t turn our Country into the desert we are about to do, if we don’t take the steps such as what I have outlined.

If a Country makes a name for itself in this subject Internationally, then we know that the Tourist who comes here is not looking at air-conditioning, nor adding to the Carbon Footprint. Today’s tourists and the hotel business is anything but despite the platitudes for ecology!

It is a win win situation, and Bhutan has been on the forefront of this, and everyone appears to want to emulate it. Why are we so shy to do so, when we are naturally so blessed to be able to do this without too much effort!