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The district forest officer, who had worked in a district in Uva province, joined the company after retirement. The central bank is also investigating the company for accepting lakhs of rupees in deposits from the public under the guise of growing agarwood or valapata.
Private land is also located in the portion of Knuckles reserve that falls under Kandy district and the Forest Department recently took action to take over a large portion of it. It was revealed that one such piece of land acquired was cleared without permission.
Conservator of Forests Minister Nishantha Edirisinghe said the land was cleared without the permission of the Forest Department and that if any development work is to be done on private land within the protected area, an environmental assessment report must be submitted and permission from the Forest Department must be obtained.
Based on the information received on the afternoon of 12th regarding the unauthorized clearing in the Knuckle Reserve, the former district forest officer put pressure on the forest conservator when he went to investigate the matter. But the forest conservator has arrested the driver of the soil cutter and is conducting further investigation. The former district forest officer has informed the forest officials to release the arrested persons.
Conservator of forest officials claimed that the clearance was carried out in areas within the pole boundary of the Knuckle reserve. That is, within the reserved area. The forest conservatorship also used poles on the land that had been acquired to be used as the Knuckle reserve, an official from the department said.
The driver of the machine said he used the mower to pave a path.
Sources inside the Panwila Divisional Secretariat said the land was also acquired by the Forest Conservation Department. The total amount of private land taken over by the Forest Department from Kandy district to the Knuckles reserve is 115 acres.
The Forest Conservation Department will submit a B report to the Theldeniya Court today (15th) to confirm the specific situation of the land in question.
The forest chief said further investigation would be carried out and if the company involved had ownership of the land, it should submit documents related to the land to the court.
Reacting to the incident, environmentalist Janaka Visanage of the Centre for Environmental Justice said that there were allegations of giving away forest land to companies in the Monaragala region even when the district forest officer was working. He also said that the land available to the company concerned not only the Nakles reserve but also various areas of the island, especially the Sinharaja induction area.
– Aruna
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