A Gazette signed by former President Maithripala Sirisena to annex nine peripheral forests (popularly known as “pitakaley) to Sinharaja has been published after a lapse of one year.

Issuing a statement on Facebook, the former President commended the efforts of environmentalists for the success.

“My respect and tribute to all the environmentalists who stand up to protect the great environment first and all those who love the environment. It is our duty and responsibility to protect this great earth for the future of the future”, he said.

Sirisena said today is a day that everyone who loves the earth can be happy as well as people with great hearts.

A year ago, the system around the Sinharaja forest, a wet evergreen rain forest, which was named as a world heritage that brought life to the entire great universe, was extended by three times and added to the Sinharaja forest with a special gazette announcement.

“I increased the Sinharaja forest which was limited to 11000 hectares by 36474.93 hectares. This decision is a decision taken by me for living in the holy motherland and for the existence of human, animals and the nature of the whole world”, he said.

The former President’s further said a year ago he signed this special gazette but people couldn’t see and use it because it was delayed in print. I kindly asked the authorities over the phone about the delay and I was kindly stated that they would get it done as soon as possible. Thank you to the staff from the government printing and publishing that gazette after one year.

Maithripala Sirisena further said that at this moment, he was thankful to all the humanitarian people overseas who conserve the Sinharaja forest which is in the 10 largest wet evergreen rain forests in the world, and to all the humanitarian people overseas who have continuously shared their ideas to increase the size of the Sinharaja forest.

“I hope 65 more special gazettes signed (not printed) by me for the environment will be published soon for the public to see”, he added.