Today is World Wildlife Day
“Ecocide is the destruction of the natural environment by deliberate or negligent human action.” Oxford Languages
Every day in Sri Lanka, newspapers, television and social media platforms cite examples of ecocide, a terrible crime that spells doom to the future of all life, human and otherwise. Senior representatives of the government encourage ecocide in the name of supposed social justice while the real benefactors of this wanton destruction are their financial allies, corporate entities who wish to exploit as much as they can from the land, as soon as they can, and with little care for what they will leave behind. All of this encroachment into protected areas, deforestation, building of roads and extraction of natural resources are in breach of the law, dismissed by mere political wish and decree. If these, the very foundations of social structure, are treated with such impunity, then what more lies in store for this nation?