Once the Green researchers saw that it must approach the intervention via river basins, they identified seven rivers for treatment. These area the Sudu Ganga, the Kalu Ganga, the Thelgamu Oya, the Heen Gaanga, the Hasalaka Oya, the Barawardhana Oya and the Namini Oya. Akila and Tharindu mapped all of the areas for each of the river basins and through both visual and analytical exercises and determined the exact catchments and microcatchments, the possibilities for pollution and of course, the points where chemical and soil testing would need to be done in order to arrive at baselines for those. While they were engaged in these activities, Jayantha, our environmentalist was looking for any climate or damage related data in those areas while Nimal, our agronomist determined the lay of the land with respect to agriculture. Arjuna meanwhile brought his abilities to read communities and make sense of the various sectoral upstreams into a coherent, logical map of the dynamics of the terrain. While the terrain mapping went well, the team ran into problems acquiring climate and damage related data in the target areas. That was troublesome and did not bode well for the quality of the inception report.

The researchers realizes that a river basin approach is the best

Woo bingo. The research team is back at the Hunnasgiriya office and traversing through satellite maps, terrain photographs and whatnot. As we were going through an arial view I realized that whatever damage was done was in and around the river valleys. Suddenly it all made sense. That was why the KCF looked like the Norwegian coastline. The protectionists had excluded the rivers from their um… high security zones… so to speak. Heh. Funny. These jokers who popped into those areas in this lifetime were attempting to claim ownership of that terrain while excluding those who had lived in the area for hundreds if not thousands of years. Therein I saw the reason why conservation failed in many instances. The people who have a right, a claim and a reason the preserve those areas were excluded so some nutjob from Colombo could go in and screw around “watching” things. Everyone knows that human beings not any other animal ever “looked at nature”. They bloody well used it. Used it well of course but used it. It was only with industry, ego, self-servitude that things went south. It was the very restrictions on life systems placed by well meaning idiots that created legal boundaries to areas where tradition had preserved things well that “illegal” activities were forced upon the people. So we decided, enough is enough. This way lies a compounding of already established madness. If these areas were to be preserved, it had to be done by the people who live in those areas not anyone else. If that was to be achieved, we had to treat the entire basin of a river and not the unnatural cleavage of GNs and HHs. And so! That is how we will execute COLIBRI. Across entire river basins and not, as we had naively indicated, by addressing administrative boundaries. We could certainly have done the easy and ducked the question entirely but that is not the way of the Greens. We do what we must not what we can. We do what is right not what is convenient. Although (lop sided grin), I wish I had the moral turpitude to casually look the other way, do the simple thing, pound out the indicators, highlight some best practice or three and when things die as they surely would, extract an immoral dignity by hiding behind the phrase “lessons learned”. But I can’t. Nor can the greens. Phew! We have our work cut out.

Impromptu meet at Corbert’s Gap

Brutally hard swing through the terrain over the last few days but heady and highly informative. We saw it all first hand in each microgeography with Sura giving me a running commentary as we drove through. Phenomenal sense of the area on his part and boy did I learn a lot. We would stop in the middle of the road and have impromptu meetings which was the way we always did things at the Green and it was nice to see us doing that again since I’d been away for a few years on other work. I figured out that cardamoms could be cultivated outside the protected areas if the terrain was right. Tough ask but we found a few pockets where it was possible and those were chalked up as possibilities for the future. An old campaigner in the form of Nava of Meemure gave us super insights into some of the ways in which those communities changed with changes in the way in which they were allowed to continue their livelihoods. Flagged up the pollution as well from tourists and locals as well as the huge waste of water from tapping directly into springs at the level of each family. We might need to work on that with these communities and hope they see sense. Much to be done here and the researchers are raring to go.

The COLIBRI kick-off was held on the 24th of January 2021. The whole gang was there including Ludovic from the EU our oversight officer. It was a pretty interesting meet because we saw what everyone else was planning to do and had the opportunity to ask questions and get answers. It was also a very nice bonding session.

Sura and I are up in the mountains house hunting. Not office hunting. The Greens never had their office in an office. It was frustrating because we wanted Hunnas and its literally a one-horse town. After a fruitless search that took up down weird, dark lanes, a little time out when we had to extract a vehicle from the brink of a precipice with half the town helping, we had had enough. None of the locations felt right and for us the vibe is everything. Went into a small shop that was selling fresh cow’s milk. The charming old lady running the joint listened to our house hunting woes and said, “ah I know a place” and calls out to a tuk driver to take one of our colleagues there to check. No cigar but then, the driver casually mentions that he has a house vacant if we would like to see it. Well, we had nothing to loose and went up the mountain with him – straight to our future home. The feeling that this was where we belong was instantaneous. Bandu and his family were absolutely charming, beautiful people. We were hooked. It was a really happy end to a brutally frustrating day. What a break!