Mr P.B.

Abeykoon, Secretary to the President

Presidential Secretariat
Minister for Environment and Minister for Reconciliation
Galle Face, Colombo 1,
Sri Lanka
Cc: Mr E.M.S.B. Ekanayake, Secretary to the Prime Minister
Hon. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, Minister of Education
Hon V.Radhakrishnan, State Minister of Education
Mr W.M.Bandusena, Secretary, Ministry of Education
Hon. Gamini Jayawickrema Perera, Minister of Sustainable Development and Wildlife
Dear Mr Abeykoon
Sri Lanka ignores Environmental Sustainability and SDGs
Please share the following with the President:
A. We are writing to say:
i.that all Ministers and State Ministers must be asked to apply Environment Impact
Assessment and Circular PS/DSP03/16 in all what their Ministries do and
ii.how shocked we are to find that State Minister of Education Radhakrishnan *requested 16
granite statues of Thiruvalluvar(Thirukkural is the text he wrote) from India forgetting that
granite was formed millions of years ago and that we need to use it only for purposes of
utmost importance so that our future generations can also use granite for their purposes of
utmost importance.. In fact he has forgotten the urgency to abide by Environmental Impact
Assessment and Environment Circular PS/DSP03/16,
http://www.environmentmin.gov.lk/web/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=248&Itemid=326&lang=en . That is applicable not
only to Sri Lanka but also to India and every other country in the world. These are integral
parts of Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs.
B. Ministry of Education must be informing the whole cabinet that 2005-2014 was the Decade
of Education for Sustainable Development and that SDGs were started in 2015 to transform
the world towards Sustainable
Development( http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals ) All
the Ministrues should constantly gauge their practice against the SDGs to make sure that they
achieve them. Achieving SDGs is the best possible way to achieve Reconciliation.
C. It is Unsustainable ''Development'' in the North and the East: while the military forces and
some monks are building a large number of Buddha statues in the North and the East State
Minister for Education is filling up the rest of the space with Thiruvalluvar statues one of which
is enough for the whole of SriLanka. He may see that Thirukkural is put inside the heads and
hears of all the people just as Buddhist philosophy is put inside the heads and hearts of
people and not inside granite or concrete. Then achieving the SDGs becomes so easy.
Please let me know the contact details of Dr Santhosam of Chennai and K.Sathcithananthan of
Jaffna who are mentioned in the article.
Statues in public places should not be at the the request of individuals but by public
consultations.
D. We are appealing to the whole cabinet to address the concerns expressed in:
Amber Light Signals Requiring Pro-active Action by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation
Commission, Chandra Jayaratne, 6 October 2010, http://groundviews.org/2010/10/06/amberlight-signals-requiring-pro-active-action-by-the-lessons-learnt-and-reconciliation-commission/
Human Consumption of Earth's Natural Resources has tripled in 40yrs, 25 July 2016,
http://www.ecowatch.com/humans-consumption-of-earths-natural-resources-tripled-in-40years-1943126747.html

Yours sincerely
P.Selvaratnam (Dual citizen), 04 August 2016