Bhagya Abeyratne appearing on the Sinhala version of ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ television quiz show. Last standing Sri Lanka’s endemic Crudia Zeylanica tree which district forest officer Devani Jayathilake managed to save from the ax.
Nineteen-year-old Bhagya Abeyratne appeared on the Sri Lankan version of the popular quiz TV program Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Though she did not get the coveted prize, she won millions of hearts, becoming an ecological warrior like Greta Thunberg.
Bhagya lives in Rakwana, a village bordering the Sinharaja forest reserve designated a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and described in tears how a part of the protected rain forest is being cleared to build a hotel. She confessed that one aim of participating in the program was to find money to buy a laptop.
“I cannot bear to see how bulldozers are clearing for a hotel project while one of a trio of elephants living there is missing. The construction is coming up obstructing the pachyderms’ corridor,” she said, shedding tears before a shocked audience that also included her father, who wondered loudly whether his family would live safely in their village after his daughter’s audacious revelation on TV.
A couple of days after she reached home, two police officers visited to record her statement. A senior wildlife officer of the region also showed up to test her knowledge on legislation relating to the protected rain forest in an intimidating manner.
Bhagya, who vowed to fight against the forest reserve’s destruction, was seen visibly shaken in this encounter with officials, probably thinking that she and her family were in harm’s way.
Wildlife Minister C.B. Ratnayake said that she should know her facts before making such statements referring to her comments on the quiz show.
Bhagya is not without supporters. A team of lawyers from Colombo visited her to pledge their cooperation, and a group of well-known Buddhist monks too called on her to promise their support to the young ecological warrior. A monk appealed to President Gotabhya Rajapaske, saying that, “What needs to be done is not to question the young girl over her comments, but to remove the minister (Minister of Wildlife and Forest Conservation) from his post.”
Bhagya gave leadership to the fractured group of environmental activists whose constant pleas fell on deaf political ears. Several animal rights groups and civil society activists have condemned the law enforcement authorities’ actions against Bhagya. “Everybody should express admiration towards this girl,” said Prof. Camena Gunaratne, Head of the Department of Legal Studies at the Open University in Colombo. “It is good to see young people expressing their concerns over environmental destruction. Civil society should rally around her and speak for her rights. She has done nothing wrong, and she hasn’t broken any law. This is a violation of her right to freedom of speech. She deserves admiration and support as she’s raising some pertinent questions,” said Gunaratne.
Nirosha Athukorala, the convenor for Women’s Organization for Justice, also slammed authorities for failing to question the landowners who have allegedly acquired protected lands, while they only question Bhagya over her comments.
The hilly virgin rainforest was saved from the worst of commercial logging by its inaccessibility, but now there are allegations that people of money and power have broken its defences by using heavy bulldozers and chain saws with political patronage.
Last week, more than a hundred representatives representing environmental protection bodies demonstrated against forest land clearing at the Colombo Nelum Pokuna (Lotus Fond) performing arts centre. Bhagya has been the spark that prompted such widespread protests against the destruction of forests.
A few weeks before Bhgya’s TV appearance, Devani Jayathilake, a district forest officer in Gampaha in the western province that also includes the capital, Colombo, rushed into an early morning encounter with a crew trying to cut down the last surviving Crudia Zeylanica tree endemic to Sri Lanka. The authorities trying to build a highway were not pleased with the government officer’s interference who was supposed to tow the official line of thinking.
According to Wikepedia, this tree was once thought to be extinct, but a plant was rediscovered in 2019 by researchers. Until 2019, this tree had not been seen since 1911, and was known only from the herbarium specimens. It was this tree that the loggers were trying cut down in a small plot of forest land located close to the Daraluwa Railway Station in Gampaha. Jayathilake also questioned a key politician from clearing a protected forest land in Negombo for a children’s playground.
A research professor says the tree should be allowed to remain where it stands and that the proposed elevated road should either go around it or be built higher — both costly options for the developers. There’s no guarantee, he said, that the tree will survive being uprooted and transplanted elsewhere, as the Road Development Authority has suggested. Neth FM News reveals that 70 days preceding March 3, the police have recorded 52 incidents of jungle clearing on 43 acres of protected land and arrested 56 offenders.
Speaking during an interview, Bhagya said that she didn’t commit murder or any such crime. “I only spoke about the injustice happening to the environment and wildlife. Being questioned by the Police itself raises a doubt as to whether this country is really democratic?” Talking about her future, she said, “I want to study about the environment and pursue a career in this field. I would like to see more young people take an interest to save the vanishing forests.” – newstrails.com
