{"id":75152,"date":"2021-11-27T00:17:25","date_gmt":"2021-11-27T04:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=75152"},"modified":"2021-11-28T00:33:53","modified_gmt":"2021-11-28T04:33:53","slug":"residents-of-northern-village-chundikulaam-deprived-of-heir-traditional-agricultural-lands-by-wildlife-conservation-depts-arbitrary-expansion-of-area-for-wildlife-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=75152","title":{"rendered":"Residents of Northern Village Chundikulaam Deprived of heir Traditional Agricultural Lands by Wildlife Conservation Dept\u2019s Arbitrary Expansion of Area for Wildlife Park"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBy<\/p>\n

Meera Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Chundikulam village, located on the eastern tip of Jaffna Peninsula, farmers are facing a peculiar challenge.<\/p>\n

They are unable to access their lands in which they have recently sowed vegetables. \u201cBorder stones of the Department of Wildlife Conservation have sprouted on our plots,\u201d said S. Arunthavaraja, a resident, pointing to a dull grey stone with the letters \u2018DWC\u2019 painted on it. \u201cOnce a stone like this is put on our lands, we have been told not to enter the area, as it is part of the government\u2019s conservation effort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

His problem is yet another reflection of a widespread concern in Sri Lanka\u2019s Tamil-majority north and east. On the one hand, successive governments in power during Sri Lanka\u2019s post-war decade show records of returning people\u2019s lands until now held by the military. On the other, scores of families, who have returned to their villages following years of war-time displacement, have been highlighting other, more recent \u201cthreats\u201d to their land, mostly from the government\u2019s archaeology and forest departments. Last year, farmers in the Eastern Province filed at least a dozen cases challenging authorities to reclaim their lands that they once cultivated or used as grazing patches for their cattle.<\/p>\n

\u2018Reserve areas\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The nearly 250 families in and around Chundikulam, over an hour\u2019s drive from Jaffna town, and bordering Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts, are largely engaged in agriculture and fisheries for a living. During the civil war, they were displaced to Mullaitivu \u2014 some residents recalled walking to the neighbouring district \u2014 and returned to their village in phases, in 2009 and 2011. \u201cWhen we came back, there was absolutely nothing here \u2014 our homes were destroyed. And now, the government has declared our ancestral lands \u2018wildlife reserve areas\u2019,\u201d said Natesa Yogaraja, a community leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur village also has a heavy military presence, you would have seen. The CID will likely question us for even speaking to the media,\u201d he said. The Marunthakeni area in Vadamarachchi East has several military check points, as residents pointed out. \u201cThey say it\u2019s to prevent narcotics trade. Every day, we read about big hauls being seized in different parts of the country. What does that mean? How do the drugs enter our country despite all this surveillance?\u201d he asked, referring to the government\u2019s rationale for persisting military presence in many coastal areas in the north.<\/p>\n

According to Chandralingam Sugirthan, a former member of the Northern Provincial Council, many families had title deeds for the private land, and some others were cultivating state land for decades. \u201cWhen the war ended, the government began gazetting these lands as areas earmarked for conservation,\u201d he said. The problem, he said, has persisted for years now, across governments. \u201cAuthorities neither inspected the areas in person, nor consulted people living here for many generations before declaring them wildlife reserve areas. It is the same story across the north and east.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing Parliament recently, Jaffna district MP Gajen Ponnambalam said the forest department has been declaring hundreds of acres of private land, or permit land of the people, as protected areas. \u201cIf there is a reallocation of state land, it is often given to people belonging to other districts, to systematically change the demography of the north and east. When we tell these truths, they say we are racist, or communal, or against Sinhalese, that is not the case. But you cannot pauperise the people of the north and east to the benefit of people outside,\u201d he told the House.<\/p>\n

\u2018Disputed areas\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the 2018 performance report of Sri Lanka\u2019s Wildlife Conservation Department, about 50,000 acres in Chundikulam, which was earlier a bird sanctuary, was \u201cupgraded\u201d to a national park in 2015. Residents had raised the matter with the former Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration as well, but to no avail.<\/p>\n

When contacted, Chandana Sooriyabandara, director general of the Department, said the concerns of the people o Chundikulam had been brought to his attention. When the area was upgraded to a national park, several human inhabitations were excluded, he said. \u201cBut there are some disputed areas. We had planned to undertake a field visit to review our conservation plan, but we had to postpone it due to the pandemic,\u201d he told The Hindu. \u201cWe will consult the locals soon and resolve the issue,\u201d he said. For residents like P. Yogalakshmi, 62, it is perplexing to how lands she grew up on, saw her father and grandfather cultivate, has suddenly ceased to be her family’s. \u201cSee, we have all the papers,\u201d she said, opening a file with her pale-yellow title deed.<\/p>\n

According to Mr. Natesa Yogaraja, the recent moves also threaten the village\u2019s food production. \u201cIf we are allowed to cultivate our lands, the entire village will be self-sufficient. Let authorities take action if we hunt illegally. In all these years, our people have never harmed the birds and animals in this habitat. We have coexisted.\u201d<\/p>\n

The people of the village were neither against the government in Colombo, nor part of some protest highlighting ethnic issues, he observed. \u201cWe are just struggling for our livelihoods here,\u201d he said, kick-starting his two-wheeler with a prosthetic leg. Like scores of others in the province, he was severely injured in war-time shelling.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Meera Srinivasan In Chundikulam village, located on the eastern tip of Jaffna Peninsula, farmers are facing a peculiar challenge. They are unable to access their lands in which they have recently sowed vegetables. \u201cBorder stones of the Department of Wildlife Conservation have sprouted on our plots,\u201d said S. Arunthavaraja, a resident, pointing to a …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Residents of Northern Village Chundikulaam Deprived of heir Traditional Agricultural Lands by Wildlife Conservation Dept\u2019s Arbitrary Expansion of Area for Wildlife Park’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75153,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75152\/revisions\/75153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}