The Hon. Thurairasa Ravikaran

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, I wish to bring to the attention of the Hon. Minister and Deputy Minister responsible for lands the views of our people on land issues. There were land thefts by departments under the previous administration; these must be eliminated under yours.

¶ 02 The Vanni region has extensive forests. Our people’s lives have long been intertwined with nature. They did not oppose nature or destroy forests. Until 2009, we did not see heavy vehicles passing with loads of timber. We did not hear the harsh sounds of chainsaws. Until 2009, neither the Forest Department nor the Department of Wildlife Conservation were present in our areas—though the LTTE administration existed—and yet the lifestyle of Vanni people who loved nature ensured forests were not destroyed.

¶ 03 Only after 2010 did the forest administration get established there; and thereafter, forests in Vanni were plundered—in Musali (Mannar), in Pambaimadu and elsewhere in Vavuniya—dense forests and reserved forests were ruthlessly cleared with heavy machinery. These must be considered as usurpations or thefts by the Forest Department. If you check Google Earth timelines, you can see how forests were preserved before 2009 and how they were plundered after. To this day, the actions of the Forest Department are riddled with corruption; likewise, the Wildlife Department operates similarly. After 2010, these “thieving departments” have even attempted to grab our house yards, fields, garden drains, roads, burial and cremation grounds.

¶ 04 Since 2009, in violation of existing laws and regulations, without notifying District or Divisional Secretaries or obtaining land surveys properly, the Forest Department has, through gazette notifications, declared as forest areas a vast extent—according to Divisional Secretariat statistics, in Mullaitivu District alone, 167,487 acres have been so gazetted as forest.

¶ 05 According to those reports, from 1983 to 2009, residential lands of displaced people; paddy lands distributed under the Muththaiyan Kattukulam and Thannimurippu irrigation schemes; and irrigation tanks still under the Department of Agrarian Development, along with their command areas, have been declared reserved forests by the Forest Department via unlawful gazettes. The District Secretariat statistics confirm this.

¶ 06 Similarly, only after 2009 in Mullaitivu did the Wildlife Department bring under its control 10,119 acres in the Maritimepattu DS Division as the Nandikadal Natural Habitat, 10,925 acres as the Nayaru Natural Habitat, and in the Puthukkudiyiruppu DS Division 46,357 acres as the Sundikkulam National Park—totalling 69,401 acres—according to District statistics.

¶ 07 On livestock: due to lack of pastureland, about 140,000 cattle in Mannar, 130,000 in Vavuniya and 100,000 in Mullaitivu are tied in stalls. Please find a proper way to allocate pasturelands so these herds are not neglected. Let your actions address these grievances without marginalizing the Vanni region. Thank you.