This guide is for governments, conservationist practitioners and insurers to design and introduce insurance schemes to reduce human-wildlife conflict (HWC) and promote human-wildlife coexistence. Certain
Sri Lanka has been rescuing orphaned baby elephants for more than 35 years with state help, and the transit home is part of a drive to save the island's endangered elephant species. However, after years of being bottle-fed formula milk, eight orphaned baby elephants appear reluctant to leave their temporary home, but mahouts heave-ho them onto trucks for a journey back to the wild. The elephants are enticed with milk and coconut palm to climb the ramps into the trucks - the time has come to leave Sri Lanka's Elephant Transit Home.
Local Government and Provincial Councils Minister Janaka Bandara Tennakoon has taken steps to provide road reforms in four Pradeshiya Sabha areas in the Anuradhapura District. Rural roads which are in a bad condition in the Pradeshiya Saba areas of Medavachchiya, Kahatagasdigiliya, Talawa and Nochchiyagama are to be underground fast reconstruction. These rural roads are reconstructed by the World Bank Funded Local Government Infrastructure Development Project.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Sri Lanka welcomed a donation of US$4.6 million worth of rice and canned fish from Japan. The food will be used to feed 275,000 school children and 350,000 displaced and conflict-affected persons for three months in the most neglected areas of Sri Lanka.
Around 32,000 have been settled within a land area of 80,000 acres, expending of Rs. 32,000 million by the government, to enhance rice production in the country under the Mahaweli development programme. The main water supply to the H zone is from Kalawewa reservoir which has a capacity to irrigate 27,000 acres of land. But later more and more land was brought under paddy cultivation in excess of the water available to feed the crops. Ultimate result was the shortage of water for nearly 53,000 acres of paddy cultivation.
The government is planning to scrap the fertiliser subsidy, the UNP said yesterday. Kalutara District UNP MP, Sarath Ranawaka told a news conference in Colombo, that the government having promised to boost agricultural production was cooking up excuses to deprive the farmers of the meagre fertiliser subsidy. "As in the case of all promises made under the Mahinda Chintana, the stage is being set to forget the fertiliser subsidy as well."
A new road connecting Dehiowita, Deraniyagala and Noori Plantation will be built at a cost of 100 million rupees, the biggest road construction project in the area after the British built roads for plantations, Minister of Consumer Affairs and Cooperatives H. R. Mithrapala said yesterday (14). Since the area had several tea and rubber plantations, the new road will benefit the plantations as well as the villages, he said.
The Government of Japan has donated 5,685 tonnes of rice and 110 tonnes of canned fish for the distribution among the internally displaced people (IDP) returnees and economically affected people in the most insecure and marginalized areas of Sri Lanka. The food items worth 500 million Yen (approximately 500 million rupees) have arrived in Colombo and will be distributed shortly through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)..
Canada has given Sri Lanka support to train officials from government and non-governmental organisations in responding to natural disasters like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which devastated parts of its coastline. High Commissioner for Canada, Angela J. Bogdan, said in a statement that the devastating impact of the tsunami and other natural disasters in many countries had reinforced the need for better planning and preparation for major natural disasters."
The International Centre for Cancer (ICC) in Leon France has come forward to assist cancer treatment in Sri Lanka as the incidence of the dreaded disease is on the rise in the country, a spokesman for the Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry said yesterday. "Cancer has increased to epidemic proportions in Sri Lanka with about 3000 patients seeking treatment at the Maharagama National Cancer Institute daily,' he said.
The vehicle emission testing programme, aimed at regulating the amount of fuel fumes released to the air by vehicles will be implemented from today. The programme, designed by the Environmental and Natural Resources Ministry in collaboration with the Transport Ministry, will be launched today with the opening of the first two emission testing centres at Kiribathgoda and Miriswatta junction on the Colombo-Kandy highway.
