By

Dr.S.Wijeyamohan

(Dr.Wijeyamohan is a senior lecturer in Zooology at the Vavuniya University)

Deep within the Vanni, Sri Lanka’s “green lung” is being systematically drowned in the name of progress. The Kivul Oya project, a vast irrigation scheme cutting across the island’s northern reaches, promises agricultural prosperity but threatens an ecological suicide. As 2,600 hectares of primeval forest vanish beneath the rising silt, the nation faces a harrowing trade-off: short-term harvests for the permanent destruction of its most resilient biodiversity corridor. From displaced leopards to the looming spectre of a fresh human-elephant war, the price of this reservoir may be far higher than any crop can repay.

The government is planning to implement the Kivul Oya Project in the eastern region of the Northern Province, covering Vavuniya, Trincomalee, and Mullaitivu Districts. By this project, 2,600 hectares of thick, prime Vanni forest would be inundated, thereby creating a reservoir, which is then used for irrigation for the planned cultivation in the region. The article aims to highlight the adverse environmental impact of the project.

However, many environmentalists, despite approvals have been issued by the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) and other government Authorities, seem to argue that the planned project, would adversely affect the environment, compared to the touted benefits.

The Vanni Forest: Sri Lanka’s Green Lung

The Vanni forest is the only forest in the country that spans from west coast to east coast and remains the only intact continuous forest in Sri Lanka.
This serves as the lung (Along with Sinharaja Forest) that breathes out pure oxygen for our nation.

The total land area of the Vanni region is around 7,800 square kilometres, covering Mullaitivu, Mannar, Vavuniya, and Kilinochchi districts.
Of this, the continuous forest from west to east consists of 4,400 square kilometres of pristine, functioning forest ecosystem. This is not merely a collection of trees; it is a living, breathing organism that sustains the environmental health of the entire country.

A Haven for Biodiversity

This forest is home to almost all the major wildlife in the country. It harbours healthy populations of globally endangered species including the Asian elephant, the leopard, the sloth bear, and the fishing cat.
It provides sanctuary to endemic and migratory birds, unidentified small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and an countless number of invertebrates and Plants.

In general, this forest holds and secures the life of more than ninety percent of the fauna and flora of Sri Lanka. It is healthy in the sense that the entire 4,400 square kilometres of forest functions as one single biological unit, a rarity unique in the world.

When an ecosystem of this scale operates as a unified whole, it possesses a resilience that fragmented forests can never achieve.

The Vanni Forest in Global Perspective

To put the forest cover of the Vanni into a global perspective, having 4,400 square kilometres of forest in a single sub-region is quite significant. When compared this expanse to the total national forest area of other Asian countries, one will find that the Vanni region alone has more forest than several entire nations.

To understand the ecological weight of this region, consider this: the forest in the Northern Province alone is equivalent to the entire forest heritage of a small nation. If we fail to protect it, we are not just losing a few trees; we are playing Russian Roulette with a national-scale ecosystem. Preserving this existing forest is essential not only for the Northern Province but for the entire country.

What the Kivul Oya Project Will Destroy

By executing the Kivul Oya project, an area of 26 square kilometres of thick prime jungle is going to be inundated.

This may be a fraction of the total forest area of the Vanni region, but it is a considerable portion of the thick prime jungle—the heart of the forest. By inundating this area, hundreds of thousands of trees will die. All land animals will be displaced or killed. Elephants will be expelled from this inundated area and pushed into surrounding villages.

Territorial carnivores such as leopards, jackals, and fishing cats will die, as they will not be able to find alternative territories already occupied by other members of their species.

Inundating this area would also create a huge gap between the northern forest and Padaviya, fragmenting what is currently a continuous wildlife corridor.
Although the inundated area is going to be 26 square kilometres, the aftermath of establishing the reservoir will lead to even more area being cleared in the future for settlements, agriculture, and infrastructure. What begins as a reservoir often ends as a landscape of human settlement, and the forest never recovers.

The Elephant Tragedy We Have Seen Before

Sri Lanka has nearly six thousand elephants, of which nearly six hundred may be found in the Northern Province. Human-elephant conflict is very high in Sri Lanka compared to other elephant range countries in Asia, with the highest incidence occurring in the North Central Province and the Eastern Province.
Of all the animals, elephants will suffer most from this project. They will be expelled from the inundated area immediately. This is detrimental for them now, but what happens later is even more worrying.

We have seen this scenario before—in the Accelerated Mahaweli Programme. In the Mahaweli region today, the elephant density is nearly 0.45 elephants per square kilometre.

In some places it goes up to one elephant per square kilometre, which ranks as the highest elephant density in the entire world. Obviously, the human-elephant conflict is also highest in these regions. Currently, in the Vanni region, human-elephant conflict is not a serious issue compared to other parts of Sri Lanka.

The Vanni region has approximately 0.08 elephants per square kilometre. This low density is calculated from estimating that the elephant population in this region may not be more than six hundred. The Vanni forest, being thick jungle and devoid of large areas of grassland, cannot support a large number of elephants.

The Kivul Oya Will Create Another Mahaweli

In the Accelerated Mahaweli Programme areas, large forest tracts were inundated, and those forests turned into grasslands. The wild elephants gained year-round water and fodder. Once there is year-round water and fodder, any biological population will experience exponential growth. The same thing is going to happen if the Kivul Oya project is executed.

First, the inundated area will expel elephants into nearby villages, where they will start raiding crops. Once they become habituated crop-raiders, they will never leave those areas. Later, when the flooded thick jungle dies off, it will be converted into grassland. There will be water and fodder for the elephants, and definitely the elephant population will increase.

This increased population will again lead to intensified human-elephant conflict, creating endless problems for farmers who will be unable to continue their farming activities.

We have witnessed this situation across most of the southern part of the country. In areas where people were settled along the northeast border under the Accelerated Mahaweli Programme, they are now facing the same problems. Although plenty of water is given to these people, many of them are unable to carry out their day-to-day farming activities because of wild elephants.
The Kivul Oya project is going to be another Accelerated Mahaweli Programme in terms of human-elephant conflict.

A Tale of Two Policies: The Contradiction We Cannot Ignore

It is deeply contradictory to observe what is happening in the northern province. In the western part of the northern province, large areas came under protected status under the Department of Wildlife Conservation and the Forest Department.

Some were already demarcated protected areas, many were expansions of these areas, and some were newly declared. During this process of expansion and new demarcation, a considerable number of traditional lands—some with original deeds held for generations—were engulfed into these protected areas, and the original settlers were denied their land and asked to vacate.

In fact, the road between Marichikatti and Vannathivillu was closed due to the outcry of environmental enthusiasts, and this was done at the expense of traditional convenient travel for people moving between Mannar and Puttalam. After the war, when the people of the northern part of Wilpattu returned to their own land and resettled, they cleared overgrown forest on their own land. There was a huge environmental outcry for clearing merely four square kilometres of forest.

Today, an even larger area—twenty-six square kilometres of prime forest—is going to be inundated in the eastern part of the same province, and this is been planned by the government to settle people there. The ecological principles that demanded protection for the western forests apply equally here.
The forest in the east is part of the same continuous Vanni forest ecosystem that spans from west to east.

It harbours the same endangered species, provides the same ecological services, and functions as part of the same single biological unit that makes the Vanni forest unique in the world. If four square kilometres of forest clearing in the west warranted national outcry, then twenty-six square kilometres of inundation in the east demands the same response. The forest does not distinguish between west and east; it is one living system, and its destruction in any part weakens the whole.

What is needed is not selective conservation based on geography and politics, but a consistent ecological principle that values all primary forest equally, regardless of which side of the province it stands on.

This inconsistency reveals a deeper problem: the absence of a coherent national policy on forest conservation, where decisions are made based on political convenience rather than ecological principle. The Vanni forest is not just another patch of trees. It is the last intact continuous forest in Sri Lanka.

It is larger than the entire forest cover of nations like Brunei and Tajikistan. It holds nearly ninety percent of our country’s fauna and flora. It is the lung that breathes oxygen for our nation. The Kivul Oya project will destroy twenty-six square kilometres of this prime forest. It will displace and kill thousands of animals. It will fragment a functioning ecosystem.
And it will create another human-elephant conflict disaster, exactly as we see in the Mahaweli region.

The project also exposes a troubling double standard in our environmental governance, where forest clearing and settlements are facilitated in one part of the province while closure of roads and eviction of peoples form their traditional home lans in another. This cannot be the basis for sound environmental policy.

Therefore, this project has to be reviewed and revisited and revised and even stopped—to prevent the destruction of nature in Sri Lanka, to protect our wildlife, and to save our farmers from the conflict that will surely follow.
Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past. Let us protect what remains of our natural heritage before it is too late.

Courtesy:Daily Mirror