Hon. M.A.M. Thahir
Hon. M.A.M. Thahir emphasized the importance of agriculture and environmental protection, drawing on his personal background as the child of a farmer and his continued interest in planting trees. He expressed concern that Sri Lanka’s natural resources are being destroyed or left unused, contrasting the country’s resource wealth with Singapore’s development. He urged attention to protecting forests while also preserving human relationships and unity.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 I will continue. Agriculture is the backbone of this country. I was born to a farmer; I know it well. I love nature. Even as a Member of Parliament, as a former long-serving Chairman, people still call me Chairman. When I travel with friends and we pass places where potted plants are sold, we stop, buy beautiful traditional trees and plant them in our areas. We all love nature. Yet for our needs we are destroying forests.
¶ 02 When we travel and see the nation’s resources lying unused, it pains us. Once, Singapore had no resources but said they would build their nation like resource-rich Sri Lanka; today that country has advanced, while our Sri Lanka, with all its resources, is sinking. While protecting forests, we are dividing human beings, human resources and relationships. With that, I conclude.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 3 February 2026 ·No. 23252 ·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/8890
Cite as: Hon. M.A.M. Thahir. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 3 February 2026. No. 23252. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/8890