Sri Lanka It's Happening

May 23, 2006

I spent the wesak weekend at Great Western. This is the first visit to the estate since Christmas and a lot has changed since then.

The pace of change and the pace of life in this part of the world is very slow. The the curl up in bed weather forbids haste. Now however with the Upper Kotmale project getting off the ground things are chaning at a rapid rate.

From top of the worl at Great Western where ever you look you see green. It's either tea bushes as far as the eye can see or forests. The upper half of the great western range is covered in forests. There is a very real chance that the forest will be gone by this time next year.

Part of the upper kotmale project plan involves digging a tunnel through the Great Western range. This area is prone to land and rock slides. When the mole starts rumbling deep in the bowels of the mountain it might cause the top to slide off down to the valley below.

Already the greenary is disappearing fast. Every where you look there are brown patches appearing. One of two of these patches are caused by tea bushes being uprooted. They will be replanted, but in other places the brown patches are caused by new housing projects and other construction related to the Upper Kotmale project.

Posted by raditha at May 23, 2006 7:03 AM