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Colours of the deep
By Carol Aloysius
For as long as talented underwater photographer Nishamani Jinadasa can remember, the world of underwater beauty has both fascinated and posed one of her biggest challenges: namely, how to save the living corals beneath the sea from being destroyed for ever.

Ever since this underwater photographer cum videographer obtained her diving licence in 1995 while holidaying in Cairns, Australia, she has been a committed crusader for this cause, holding awareness raising exhibitions and talking to locals on how the fate of the beautiful corals that for centuries have protected Lanka's shores lay in their hands.

"You don't have to go to the seashore in order to pollute the sea. A housewife can pollute the sea and thereby endanger the corals from her home if she dumps garbage into the water. A factory owner can harm the corals by allowing effluents from the factory to flow into the sea," she says.

"Protecting the land from a sea invasion following another tsunami is possible only if we protect our coral beds and our sand dunes from erosion and illegal mining. It is our collective responsibility, since they are natural barriers against sea water invading the land," she emphasises.

Nishamani draws her intimate knowledge of underwater life from her wide experiences as a diver in some of the world's most famed coral and fish attractions from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Ningaloo reef in Western Australia, to Sipadan island in Malaysia, from Catalina island in California, USA, to the Maldives, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Indonesia. In fact on December 26, she was diving off the coast of Manando in Indonesia which was on the opposite side of the tsunami, which occurred at Aceh." I didn't know anything about the sea invasion until I arrived on the shore and saw a number of boats adrift," she says.

Over-fishing and mining as well as the ruthless tearing down of corals in order to trap ornamental fish for aquarium purposes, she says, are some of the chief causes for the virtual disappearance of our coral beds.

Fishing in coral beds has to be stopped immediately, fishermen should be encouraged to fish in the open seas," she says emphatically. "If we don't replace these coral beds we will lose them forever. It is time that these beds are replanted and protected by the authorities before we lose this precious natural resource. We also have to create a national awareness on this problem."

It was to this end that this underwater photographer and videographer held her first solo exhibition in 2002 at the National Art Gallery. Now, three years later, she is set to hold another solo exhibition of underwater photographs entitled "Colours beneath the Sea" at the National Art Gallery beginning on June 17 and open daily on the 18 and 19 from 10 a.m to 6 p.m.

"My goal is educate schoolchildren regarding coral reefs and their conservation so that they may come to love these living underwater resources as I have,” she says.

All the photographs on display have been taken by her in different locations in |Sri Lanka: Hikkaduwa, Dickwella, Polhena, Kirinda, Bentota, Negombo, Nilaweli and Trincomalee. Other attractions will be video footage filmed by Nishamani in dive sites and shipwrecks in Sri Lanka as well as overseas, which will be shown throughout the exhibition. " It is my fervent hope that giving viewers a chance to see for themselves the difference in our coral beds and those abroad will drive home my message to the public," she says.

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