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Court orders eviction of families living in Haggala Forest Reserve
View(s):Court has ordered over 400 families living in the Gorahendigala, Meepilimana, Ambewela and Jayawaradanapura Grama Sevaka divisions to vacate their residences which are located in the in the sensitive zone of the Haggala Forest Reserve. The families have been resident in these areas for between 30 – 40 years.
43 families in the Gorahendigala area claim to have land permits, others say they have letters issued by the Provincial Land Commissioner granting them permission to live on the land, while some others do not have any legal documents regarding their lands Villagers however claim they possess a plan which they say shows the distribution of lands to those who do not possess legal documents. They also point to the existence of offices of the grama sevaka, a medical centre, a reservoir and the Seetha Eliya public cemetery within the sensitive zone of the reserve.
Wijerathne Kaluge Piyasena (64) told the Sunday Times “we came to this area in 1980, there were no restrictions to our taking up residence at that time. On 17 May 2001 –twenty years after our arrival– we received a letter from the Commissioner of Lands regularising the 15-perch block of land on which we lived.
“There are 16 members in our family and we do care about the environment. This is one of the reasons we are involved in animal husbandry”.
“I am from Vidurupola”, said W.M. Rajapaksa (40) I bought this block of land and came to the village. I spent nearly eight million rupees to construct my house. No official informed us that we could not build houses in the area. “As a young person I worked hard to build this house. I did not know the land belonged to the Wild Life Department. We did not think there could be problems as there were official houses and a grama sevaka office in the area..”. Mr. Rajapaksa felt if there was a problem; the issue should have been raised 40 years ago, as the village had now seen three generations of residents.
In an attempt to solve the problem, the Goraghendigala Village Development Association wrote to President Mahinda Rajapaksa on 04 January, 2014 asking him to intervene in the issue.