The Hon. T.K. Jayasundara
T.K. Jayasundara moved a motion urging the Government to designate and develop the ecosystem spanning Pitigala, Udugama, Neluwa, Deniyaya and Ratnapura as a tourist zone. He argued that tourism is important for increasing domestic income and highlighted the Sinharaja World Heritage Forest, Kanneliya forest, and Hiniduma Kanda as internationally significant wet-zone natural assets with high biodiversity and tourism potential.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 [12.09 p.m.]
¶ 02 I move:
¶ 03 “Whereas tourism is essential to raise domestic income in Sri Lanka’s new revival; whereas among the island’s lowland rainforests, the Sinharaja Forest — a World Heritage Site — as well as the Kanneliya forest, rich in endemic flora and fauna, and the mountain range including Hiniduma Kanda (Haycock) form an ecosystem that has attracted international attention; this Parliament urges the Government to designate the ecosystem comprising the towns of Pitigala, Udugama, Neluwa, Deniyaya and Ratnapura as a tourist zone and to develop it accordingly.”
¶ 04 Hon. Deputy Speaker, I speak about Sri Lanka’s “wet zone” ecosystem. Key components are: first, the Sinharaja World Heritage Forest — our greatest natural asset; second, Kanneliya — globally noted for high plant diversity per square kilometre; and third, the southern high peak and black rock of Hiniduma Kanda, named “Haycock” by the British.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 10 October 2025 ·No. 22640 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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/lk/speeches/13947
Cite as: The Hon. T.K. Jayasundara. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 10 October 2025. No. 22640. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/13947