- With the dawn of peace at the end of a war which prevailed over a period of more than 30 years, an Integrated Strategic Environmental Assessment was carried out in the Northern Province to identify the areas that can be utilized for development work as well as for environmental conservation with the participation of more than 25 public institutions. The Central Environmental Authority and the Disaster Management Centre pioneered this programme and the necessary financial and technical facilities were provided by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Under this assessment, areas to be declared as wildlife protected areas, with the prime objectives of mitigating the human?elephant conflict, conservation of wetlands, protection of bird migratory flyways and conservation of bio?diversity, and the few existing reserves to be updated were identified. Accordingly, the proposal made by the Minister of Tourism and Sports, Hon. Navin Dissanayake to declare the Jungle Corridors, the new Nature Reserves and the National Parks so identified and to upgrade the sanctuaries and to prepare new boundary schedules revising the existing boundaries of sanctuaries and to publish in the Government Gazette, was approved by the Cabinet.