President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that the time has come for public servants to abandon old habits and change, and if they do not change, his government is ready to change them.
The President expressed these views while participating in the World Environment Day celebrations held at Kegalle’s Independence Road today (05).
The President further emphasized that everyone has a civic responsibility to restore the environment that has been destroyed by concrete and plastic, and that the field of environment can also be used to create national unity.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that our generation has a responsibility to build peace with the earth with a common national consciousness, and that it should not be avoided and that everyone should join in it without any discrimination.
These programs are being implemented with the aim of creating the necessary space for environmental revitalization and the government is expected to launch measures to protect the environment, not to celebrate World Environment Day as a ritual.
The declaration of the Bandulapetiya habitat area as a sanctuary, the presentation of 04 new gazettes on the declaration of reserves and a gazette on the Nilgala Reserve, the conversion of 03 schools into eco-friendly model schools, the evaluation of green railway stations, etc. were also held here.
The President further commented,
“Today is a very important day. I have addressed a large number of meetings. I have expressed various ideas on various occasions. But what I have been entrusted with today is not just a speech. What I have been entrusted with is a commitment and responsibility towards our motherland and our ecosystem. And this ceremony is also not just a ceremony. I believe that it is a declaration of our commitment, feeling and responsibility towards the ecosystem. When foreigners meet us, they all say that your country is a beautiful country. We have a very valuable history regarding the ecosystem of our country. This ecosystem has made our country beautiful today…
A huge conflict has been created between the ecosystem of our country, which used to be a very good ecosystem, and the living beings living in it. Therefore, we who live today have a responsibility and duty that we cannot abandon. We must restore the ecosystem in this country. If this tragedy continues like this, we will bequeath to our future generations a great A tragedy. Therefore, the irreplaceable responsibility we have as citizens living today is to restore this ecosystem and protect it for future generations. There are a large number of strong laws behind this environment. The most powerful laws in our country are in the environmental sector. Also, there is a very formal state mechanism to implement those laws and thereby provide protection to the environment.
First, there is political authority behind these destructions. A large number of local sand dunes in our country belong to politicians, or to someone close to the politician. You know this situation better than I do. There are politicians behind our forest destruction. The political authority had the protection and protection to destroy this forest. Do not be a participant in killing life. Be a participant in giving life. We provide the necessary political protection for this. Although the political authority has been improved, some parts of the old bureaucratic mechanism have failed to escape from the old habits. From the Passport Department We meet the officers who made fake passports. We meet the officers who threw out goods at customs. We meet the officers who committed various violations at the Bureau of Mines. Therefore, we say that the time has come to abandon old habits and make new ones. I repeat, we must change or we will change.”