Organized by the Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment the special conference and exhibition under the theme “Sri Lanka Next – A Blue Green Era” was held in Colombo this week.
The program “Sri Lanka Next-A Blue Green Era” was launched in January 2016 by His Excellency the President in order to meet the objectives of the Paris agreement adopted at the 21st Conference of Parties(COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Sri Lanka Next program also aimed at ensuring country’s socio economic development in the low carbon development pathways.
The conference and the exhibition which had been organized as the second mega event of the “Sri Lanka Next – a Blue Green Era” Program took place from 16th to 17th October at the Bandaranayake Memorial International Conference Hall(BMICH).
The two day program was inaugurated by with the Presidential Environment Awards ceremony which was held under the patronage of his excellency the President Maithripala Sirisena. During this awards ceremony selected winners from eligible applicants from Sri Lankan institutions, industries, and businesses were awarded with the presidential environment award.
Speaking at the event President Sirisena emphasized that every programme to protect and conserve the environment for the future generation will be implemented without any delay. And also the President said everybody should fulfill their responsibilities to to take the country towards a green development while protecting the nature, nurtured with trees and rivers, gradually getting rid of the concrete towns and everybody should be committed to the environmental conservation without any delay in this era in which the environment has become a threat to humans.
The award ceremony was followed by several events that had been organized with the goal of promoting sustainable development in Sri Lanka through Blue Green initiatives. The full list of events held under this program is as follows,
- Experience Sharing Forum on Climate Smart Initiatives of Sri Lanka
- Awareness creation workshop on environment for school children/ School teachers
- Expert Dialogue on Nationally Determined Contributions of Sri lanka
- SAARC-ADB workshop of the inter-governmental expert group on Climate Change
- Expert Dialogue Forum on Sri Lanka Next – a Blue Green Era-2017
- Environmental Exhibition: Alternatives for Polythene and Plastic
- Soba Chalana Sithbuwam – Short Film Festival
- Symposium on Mineral Resources in Sri Lanka- Prospects and Challenges 2017
- 3rd National Symposium on Marine Environment – Harnessing Ocean Wealth-Enabling Blue Green Era
- Global Youth Forum on Climate Change
Many local and international experts on climate change, school and university students, and other guests participated these events and the program was implemented in collaboration with many government and non governmental organizations, private sector, civil societies, academics, experts, donor agencies, and other environmental considerations.
