Forest Policy

Current Trends in Forest and Environmental Policies in Sri Lanka

The article attempts to discuss the trends of forest policy in terms of the historical perspective, implementation strategies, and institutional development. In the introduction, the authors begin by stating about the current state rapid degradation of the environment in Sri Lanka. Since importance was given to high economic growth rates and employment creation for poverty alleviation, there wasn’t enough attention given to manage the forests. Then the authors follows by the consequences of these natures degradation and the importance of environmental management. They then discuss about conditions required to achieve sustainable development in environment management, Governments

The establishment of forest rules and regulations goes back to 161 to 137 B.C. In the history, the community managed their forest resources with great care, protecting the balance of the ecosystem because of religious and other sentiments and the traditional value system of the people. An extreme change in land use policy occurred after foreign invasion resulted in denudation of the natural forest.

“During the Portuguese period forests were exploited as an easy commodity. Forests were so extensive at the time that they saw no limits to extraction. The Dutch viewed forests as a valuable resource and introduced systematic exploitation with a certain degree of protection of forests for the first time. Due to the ever increasing conflict with the Portuguese and Dutch in the Maritime Provinces, the Kandyan Kingdom gradually became disorganized and the people of both Kandyan and maritime sectors exploited forests for their livelihood due to the absence of strong agricultural and economic controls under the

With a long history of policy and laws towards environmental protection, deforestation have decreased now thanks to a strong history of conservation measures. However these implementation of government policies related to environment was often characterized by a lack of inter-agency coordination, poor public participation inadequate funding, and weak political will.

The authors does a good job in explaining in detail about the strategies and institutional involvement in implementing and directing forest policies from the history till recent times. The authors could have also explained the policies formulated to protect the bio diversity, wildlife, watershed management, and forestry research. In the conclusion the authors alleges that the institutions and agencies have not performed effectively, and if so they would have reflected much better