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Land grabs and land filling sow seeds of environmental damage, say officials
Authorities have found that illegal occupation of land and also landfilling are mostly done by low income families and farmers, and these can have an adverse impact on the environment.
The Land Commissioner General’s Department revealed that about 700,000 people have illicitly used plots for cultivation and to build their homes.
The head of the institute, Chandra Herath, told the Sunday Times that plots are illicitly used in Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Badulla, and Monaragala.
To reduce illegal land grabs, authorities have distributed 1.1 million permits to farmers and low income families.
The Secretary of the Ministry of Lands and Lands Development, R.A.A.K. Ranawaka, said there have been many instances where government lands are illegally occupied, mostly from reservations, bare lands, and liveable sites.
“Most of the time we try to legalise such plots and officially hand them over under a government programme, because these lands are acquired by farmers and low income families to live and grow crops,” he said.
The director general of the Central Environmental Authority (CEA), Hemantha Jayasinghe, said most of the paddy lands are filled up for construction.
“We check if there has been an impact on the environment due to land filling and take action if needed,” he said.
According to him, illegal land acquisition and land filling are carried out by private industrialists and businessmen.
The director of the Coastal Conservation Department, Gamini Hewage, said about five years ago the coastal area along the Negombo lagoon was encroached.
However, according to him, there were only one or two cases of illegal land acquisition belonging to the department.
Mr. Hewage said the police had to be called to act against coastal area encroachers.
According to statistics by the Forest Department, the highest number of court cases for encroachment was recorded in 2018 in comparison with 2016 and 2017 with a total of 968. Accordingly, 877 cases were reported in 2016, while there were 818 in 2017. The highest number was reported from the Anuradhapura division.
For three consecutive years, the Monaragala division reported the highest area of state forest encroachment. In 2008 alone, 277.63 hectares had been encroached.
The department’s head, W.A.C. Weragoda, told the Sunday Times that most of the forest lands are illegally occupied for living and cultivation.
“We have sent officials to check the forests with instructions to act against encroachers and take them to court,” he said.
To stop the frequent encroachment of forests, the Forest Department has marked the borders, and according to Mr. Weragoda, most illegal occupation takes place in the dry zone.
According to research in 2016 by Prof. H.M. Nawarathna Banda of the Kelaniya University, the average person dumps almost 4.5 pounds of waste into landfills every single day and with the population rising, these landfills will only become a bigger public issue with time.
Moreover, the study says landfill gases, and the sheer volume of landfill waste, can easily ignite a fires that can also potentially destroy habitat.
Landfills produce highly combustible methane gas. Firefighters will often use a fire-retardant foam to fight fires in landfills, and that in turn adds more chemicals to these sites.
Prof. Banda told the Sunday Times that filling up natural water retention areas is not the wisest thing to do because a more immediate concern is for the wildlife that comes into contact with chemicals.
“Authorities should stop infrastructure development that damages the environment and think of more innovative ways,” he said.
He is concerned that by filling marshy land that usually helps retain water and are rich in bio-diversity are being destroyed by extensive land filling.
“This has also resulted in the reduction of groundwater levels and paddy fields are also not receiving much water during the dry season,” he said.
He suggests communities join hands to reduce waste, recycle, or reuse, and the government should be steadily increasing landfill tax as waste producers are willing to pay for alternative disposal methods.
The Divisional Secretaries have also identified the need to find a solution to illegal land filling and land grabbing.
“The issue in Negombo is that there is less space to build houses and the price of land is high as a result of which low income families find it hard to survive. So they live illegally on the coast,” the Negombo Divisional Secretary, A.Y. Pathirana, said.
According to her, these encroachers only live on a temporary basis and most of them are fisher families.
“Authorities have warned these families time and again and most of them have only been fined, as there are no alternatives to relocate them.”
Accordingly, Kuttiduwa, Munnakaraya, and Pitipana have been identified as areas where people squat on protected areas.
She said there is also illegal land filling taking place in areas closer to the lagoon.
“Due to the lack of space to build housing, we have suggested that officials consider building flats and relocate these people,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Wattala Divisional Secretary, P.D.T.C. Rajika said: “There is an immense amount of land that is being filled in the Wattala Divisional Secretariat, and despite warnings, people continue to do so.”
According to her, Bopitiya, Hendala, Wattala, and Mahabage have been identified as places where land filling occurs extensively