in sri lanka they are trying to revive a long dead cadavar, and in the attempt they will be destroying thousands of hectares of an evergreen jungle, cause the death and destruction of our dwindling elephant herds and other wild life.
all this in the name of progress, development or other obscene terms that are used to hide man’s greed.it is a long established fact that sugar industry in lanka is a total faliure. that the cost of production, even if we do not consider the environmental cost, is probably the highest int he world and that it is always cheaper to import sugar.
it is an accepted fact int he sugar industry that only very large scale production is viable to be cost effective, to be able to crush more than 10,000 tons cane per day. we cannot even dream of such big plants in our country because of the non-availability of such vast tracts of land.
all that would happen is destruction of our forest cover. those who promote the project would reap the benefits of the valuable timber that woudl be cut down. but the poor farmers who would be lured into this land woudl invariably suffer the same fate as the allotee farmers settled down in siyamabalanduwa more than 20 years ago.
the greater enemy of our country are not the terrorists, but those who promote such devastating projects like the new sugar plant, coal power or upper kotmale power.