10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Sajith Premadasa

Samagi Jana Balawegaya· Colombo· 6 January 2026 ·Oral question: Oral Question: Sinharaja Forest World Heritage Site Protection (Q. relating to B. Ariyawansha and points of order)

Corruption & Governance ReformEnvironment
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Hon. Sajith Premadasa questioned how the Government intends to implement its reserve protection policy, citing incidents in Galgamuwa/Kumbukwewa where Forest Department officers were allegedly driven out while protecting forest lands. He also referred to the transfer of Mr. Chathura Gunaratne after efforts to protect the Hakwatunawa Tank Reserve, asking whether such actions reflect the Government’s approach to reserve conservation.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 I wish to ask the Hon. Minister: in this situation, how will you implement reserve protection policy? Officers trying to protect Forest Department lands in Galgamuwa/Kumbukwewa are being driven out, and Mr. Chathura Gunaratne who sought to protect the Hakwatunawa Tank Reserve was transferred. Is this the Government’s policy on protecting reserves?

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Tuesday, 6 January 2026 ·No. 23111 ·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.
Permalink
/lk/speeches/17530

Cite as: The Hon. Sajith Premadasa. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 6 January 2026. No. 23111. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/17530