SL State-run Timber Corporation escalates logging of teak trees in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 June 2019, 22:47 GMT]
The SL State-owned Timber Corporation (STC) which comes under the SL Mahaweli Development and Environment Ministry, which is led by SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, has been engaged in wide-scale felling of Theakku trees (teak, Tectona grandis) in Oddu-chuddaan area in Mullaiththeevu. The occupying SL military, empowered with police powers under the Emergency Regulations, has been prohibiting Tamil journalists from entering the area to monitor and report on the anti-environment activity which has been stepped up after the visit of Mr Sirisena to Mullaiththeevu on 08 May. The teak trees being cut down are carried out by an all Sinhala team of workers from the South. The trees were planted by the Tamil Eelam Forest Conservation Unit of the Liberation Tigers and the Tamil Eelam Economic Development Organisation (TEEDOR) during the de-facto administration of Tamil Eelam before 2009.

Civil activists in Vanni said the STC is run by an all Sinhala board of directors and officials who exploit the resources of the occupied homeland of Eezham Tamils in the North-East.

In the meantime, Tamil fishers in Vavunik-kulam, a village surrounding the tank of Vannik-ku'lam in the south of Mallaavi, complained that the SL Wild-Life Conservation Department and the SL Forest Department had brought dangerous crocodiles causing havoc in the South into the tank in Vanni.

At least two fishers get attacked every week in Vavunik-ku'lam by the wild crocodiles, they complained.

The SL State-run Wild-Life Department, along with the backing of SL Forest Department, has been relocating wild elephants from the jungles in the Sinhala South and deployed these in the jungles close to the Tamil villages in the North and East.

Colombo, serving the interests of powers locked in the geopolitics, was relocating the animals from the jungles in South to build ports, airports and townships in the South.



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