Every creature in the world, including humans, have an inseparable bond with the environment. People of a country who love its trees and vegetation, the streams and waterways and the animal life are a blessing to its environment and nature. Our ancestors have left to us a clean and very beautiful environment. But today our environment is being gradually polluted by various forces such as urbanization, industrialization, overpopulation, and the open economy. Thus, there is a huge public consideration about the environment and related protection issues that have occurred in recent years. Environmental issues, such as climate changes, global warming, ozone depletion, deforestation, deprivation of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity, are among the matters that have attracted a lot of attention.
Therefore, it seems that environmental protection should be made a key criterion in any country in the world. To this end, countries need to be more responsible toward the environment and should adapt their activities to include environmental protection and appropriate management of natural resources. More precisely, it is the duty and responsibility of all of us to protect for posterity this environment. With that noble objective in mind, The Green Cross Sri Lanka (GCSL) was established in 2005 as the 29th member of Green Cross Family inspired by Green Cross International and with the full support of the Green Cross Japan. Since then we have been continuously launching various environmental conservation programs and other welfare programs for 17 years over the country and as the President of this organization, I am humbly pleased about that.
I thoroughly believe that it is no easy task to change the attitudes and the way of life of adults. But it is not so difficult a task to mould the children as harbingers of environmental protection by a change of attitudes. Accordingly, one of our programs, Green Lane the Environment Diary, can be identified as the main pathway in mobilizing school children for environmental conservation and environmental protection. In addition, we look forward to continuing to implement the Water and Welfare Projects that have been implemented by our organization to serve the nation.
Finally, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the Hon. Shoo Iwasaki ,President of Green Cross Japan and the Director of Asian Region of Green Cross International and Mr. Tom Kawmoto, Assistant to president and his staff for their support in making the Green Cross Projects a success from 2005 to date.
Dr. Jagath Seneviratne,
President of Green Cross Sri Lanka,
President of KIU,
Former Lecturer in the Japanese Language unit,
University of Sri Jayewardenepura.
