Legislation creating a Central Highlands Protection Authority will go before Parliament by the end of this year or early next year, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said on Friday, and future plantation lease agreements will carry written protections for estate communities.
The President was speaking at Poonagala in Badulla, where he handed over 50 houses to families displaced by the 2023 Kabaragala Mountain landslide.
The authority
The bill is being drafted with support from the Asian Development Bank, the Daily Mirror reported. The body would hold full powers over protection and conservation of the highlands and would pull together responsibilities currently spread across several departments, according to NewsFirst.
Dissanayake said 103 rivers and streams rise in the Central Highlands, making the region central to agriculture, water supply and the wider economy. “The Central Highlands represent the very heart of Sri Lanka,” he said.
He linked decades of unplanned development to a sharp rise in slope failures, saying landslides were once relatively rare but that Sri Lanka now records thousands of incidents, including more than 1,200 major landslides during recent adverse weather. “We are witnessing its destruction before our very eyes,” he said. Restoring the region could take decades, he added, but the practices causing the damage have to stop now.
The President acknowledged the cost of that. Some people could lose houses or plantation land to protection measures, he said, but the work should proceed with the highlands treated as a national responsibility.
The proposal has been in preparation for months. Officials briefed the President on the legal provisions in April, when the ADB and the International Union for Conservation of Nature were among those represented.
The 2042 leases
Dissanayake said land ownership remains the most pressing concern for plantation communities, whose members have contributed for generations without securing rights to the land they live on.
The lease agreements governing plantation companies expire by 2042, and the relevant ministry has already appointed a committee to review them. The government intends to settle the question well before expiry.
“When new agreements are negotiated, a key priority will be the inclusion of provisions that safeguard and protect the rights of these communities,” he said, adding: “I assure you that we are committed to ensuring that you enjoy full rights and a dignified life in this country as our own brothers and sisters.”
Neither report set out what form the protections would take, or whether they would extend to freehold title over house plots.
