Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2019-06-18

Utilization of the lands, belonging to the Government Institutions, which cannot be used for a productive economic activity, in the expeditious programme of the Department of Forest Conservation for increasing the forest cover

- The forest cover in Sri Lanka is around 29.7% of the total landmass and the Government has aimed at increasing the percentage up to 32% by the year 2030. For this purpose, the Department of Forest Conservation has planned to further extend the forest cover in about 148,000 hectares of land. Since the lands belonging to the Department of Forest Conservation alone are insufficient, the focus of attention has been drawn to make use of other Government and private lands for this programme. Accordingly, the proposal made by H.E. the President Maithripala Sirisena, in his capacity as the Minister of Mahaweli Development and Environment, to take over all the lands of the Land Reform Commission on which there are no economic plantation at present and exceeding 65% of the forest cover and the lands identified according to the progress of the forest expansion programme already initiated by the Department of Forest Conservation with the lands belonging to the Sri Lanka Cashew Corporation, to be used in the expeditious programme to increase the forest cover implemented by the Department of Forest Conservation, was approved by the Cabinet.