Invasive species threaten native species

Chamikara Weerasinghe

Environment and Natural Resources Minister Champika Ranawaka warned that invasive fauna and flora are increasing in the country's wetlands and is now posing a threat against the preservation of the country's native plants and animals.

This is an adverse effect of the extent of climate change due to carbon emissions and global warming. "Even though Sri Lanka has not contributed to any of these damages, it had to face the music of climate change, the Minister said.

Minister Ranawaka was speaking at a ceremony held at the John De Silva Memorial Hall in Colombo to mark World Wetlands Day ( February 2).

The Minister presented prizes and certificates to students who have won the Art Competition on Wetlanlds, which was organized by Central Environment Authority and Wildlife Conservation Department under the theme," Protect Wetlands to combat climate Change."

The international theme of the Wetands Day 2010 is "Wetlands, biodiversity and Climate Change."

Speaking on wetlands, Ranawaka said that the situation is such while that a part of Colombo had gone under water with a rainfall of 200 milliliters , the adjacent areas had been experiencing droughts, floods and cyclones at the same time.

"With the loss of rain for one and half months in the last year we were unable to farm paddy in 30 percent of the paddy cultivation lands.

This compelled us to import rice to meet our annual consumption of rice,which is 2,400,000 metric tonnes," he said.

"This stands to prove the impact of climate change on our agriculture and food security," he said. "Today we are unable to cultivate paddy in areas such as Muthurajawela and Attidiya because of the salinity in the soil of these areas," he said. "The cause for this is rising sea levels due to glaciers melting, because of global warming,"he explained.

"The whole Sri Lankan population is responsible for the emission of 12 metric tonnes of carbon.

But with our forests and wetlands, the country absorbs 14 metric tonnes of carbon from the environment, we are not polluting the planet," said Minister Ranawaka.