How does politics affect environmental policy?
However, the long-term is 6 year, an election cycle. We don't have a National Development Plan, we have a party development plan. Right now our development is driven by the Chintana, before it was Rata Perata and before that it was Regaining Sri Lanka. In India, for example, there are only minor changes across government. When the BJP fell out of power development went on without missing a beat.

When politicians are not thinking long-term then Civil Society has to force them. With our vote. If government realizes that then the environment will get attention. However, the situation is currently lose/lose. We lose with the politician and we lose with the people. The public, for example, doesn't appreciate water. On the coast ever house faces the road and their kitchen and toilet face the sea.

However, we still have that consciousness within us. In very remote rural areas no matter how poor they are, when they harvest they never harvest all. They leave some for the birds. Each mango is money in their pockets, but they leave some for the future.

In Sri Lanka the national policy framework is better than anywhere in South Asia, it's just not implemented. The weak link is implementation.

How does Sri Lanka manage visible pollution?
Nuwara Eliya has one well managed disposal site. Every other site is an open dump. Pollutants from organic waste reach the ground water. This means the wells people use become unsafe. Then the government has to send pipe-borne water to this area. Lose that ground water and you have the greater cost of providing that service. In greater Colombo most ground water is already unsuitable for drinking.

By polluting you write off resources. For example, water for Colombo comes from the Kelaniya river. There's not enough water so they're now drawing from the Kaluganga river. Now, brigs mine sand from the river, which changes the water level. Salt water is reaching deeper into the river and if it reaches the intake then that water is unusable.

How does the environment relate to poverty?
Poverty is directly related. The poorest people depend directly on the environment. The perspective of developing first and then thinking about the environment is possible, but it has a significant price tag. One example is the Beira Lake. About 17,500 people are in the cachement of the Beira Lake, meaning they're land slopes into the lake. They have connected their domestic sewage to storm water drains because they don't want to pay the connection fee to municipal sewage. These are not shanties, these are mostly average people.

Go down and see. If there's no storm there should be nothing coming out of the storm water drains, but every pipe is discharging. The Beira is green because the algae is feeding on sewage. It would have cost $150,000 US to connect the houses to municipal sewage. The cleanup cost, however, will be $19 million USD.

How does the environment relate to development?
People feel that you stop development for the environment. However, who wants to develop for 50 years and then stop. We have to develop in a manner that's sustainable, in a manner that we can replenish. With timber, for example, we need to replant so we don't decimate the resource. It's like good business, you use your interest and not your capital.

I don't like that there is a separate ministry for environment. Every other ministry thinks that it's not their problem. However, it should be a part of every ministry. As an example, if you're building a road it should be environmentally sustainable. They're building a road to Panama. Unfortunately, they've been told to build the road through Yala National Park. Yala has the highest density of leopards in the world. Put a bus route through that and see what happens.

Why not upgrade an existing road or put a road around the boundary. The boundary road is currently a bad road with a lot of illegal timber and poaching. We could improve that road and get the added benefit of making that area more secure.

Doing things in an environmentally friendly way doesn't mean you don't do it. You simple have to consider economic, environmental and social factors in your decision-making. Development is for people. The environment is part of development. That is the balance Goal 7 is trying to restore.

What can business do to reach the goal?
Big business should do an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for any development project. The Colombo-Matara highway needs an EIA. The Department doesn't monitor, but if they ask citizens groups then they'll mobilize to monitor their neighborhoods. This care is important because there are benefits in the long-term.

Immediately after the tsunami we asked the government to do environmental assessments for relocation. However, the government just started building. Now they're having problems, there's no water and the people won't live there. Now you have a more expensive solution of bringing in water from elsewhere.