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Policy lobbying and advocacy
Corporate crime watch
Vigilance on policies of donor agencies on mega-projects
Conduct Alternative People's Tribunals(APTs) to get address real community problems
Campaign for sustainable development and environment management
Provide legal aid to poor and marginalized communities
Strengthen institutional linkages and strengthen local networks for lobbying
Build international linkages and assist in international lobbying
Document and preserve indigenous knowledge systems
Promote sustainable farming systems
Enhance community resilience through strengthening environment friendly livelihoods
Lobby for consumer rights
Work towards community based disaster risk reduction
Work on adaptive and reductive methods for ensuring climate stability
Work for the empowerment of women, youth and children
Rebuild disaster damaged communities
Work for peace through reconciliation processes
Lobby for the rights of persons with disabilities
Lobby for the rights of small scale farmers
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| The Movement > Who are we? |
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Among all the buzzwords designed to deceive, plunder, impoverish and disempower people, perhaps none has achieved the currency that "Development" has. Today, the powerful prefer the term "globalization" to "development". Globalization is elegantly marketed as a process that will turn the world into a "global" village" and "global family". The reality is not so snug or elegant. It creates more poverty, dispossession and environmental refugees. Neither development nor globalization has been about improving the life chances of people. As history has shown, it has, instead, limited the people's choices, disempowerment in terms of fashioning their futures, opening them to massive exploitation, the wanton destruction of the environment and the effacement of cultural values in the process by profit seekers who operate in tandem with power hungry politicians.
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We were born to such a land, such a world... |
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...and in these lands we choose to walk! |
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The Green Movement of Sri Lanka (GMSL) is an organization concerned with Environmental Conservation and Awareness Creation. It is a consortium with 153 non-governmental organizations, community based organizations and other groups spread around the Island involved in natural resource management. Further, it is a part of a network of 78 international organizations as well.
The GMSL envisions the achievement of natural resource based sustainable development through the empowerment of the poorest sections of the population and conservation of the environment through activities aimed at developing vibrant and sustainable communities throughout the island.
Empowered by the sense of social responsibility and a sensitivity to our cultural ethos, we devise effective measures for the conservation of flora and fauna while protecting the country's natural wealth from being exploited by multinationals either directly or through the “generous” development policies of the multilateral organizations which look after their interests such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization and the Asia Development Bank. |
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The Green Movement of Sri Lanka is the only non-governmental organization working extensively in environment related activities that has been incoporated by special gazette notification as a charity. |
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The reality of our precarious existence on a planet in peril and the awsome effort required to put it back to rights seems like a far fetched dream. Yet we have never given up either hope or the ability to make the difficult choices that seperate green thinkers from brown thinkers.
We therefore envisage ourselves working for the harmonious coexistence of the land, its flora, its fauna and its people and the ensurance of their preservation through sustainable management and development...
...and it persuit of that dream...
we have set ourselves the task of lobbying for universal environmental awareness and the preservation of the same as an integral part of quality living. |
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The practical means of achieving these goals and targets are based very firmly on a Green Ideology that is based on the highest standards of good governance. The GMSL never compromises on transparency and accountability and constantly makes sure that the communities that the movement works with have a true say in mainstream development that affects them. The Ideology also highly values the "quality" of life of all beings on earth and understands that if that quality was even across them all, then it was because there was a balance to the way in which all things interacted with all other things.
This automatically implies that any "method of life" that is aimed at gathering towards a smaller group "more" than they will ever need or use should be automatically rejected as this has historically caused a dangerous imbalance in the order of natural things. Thus, unreasonable "affluence" is an idea that will always be rejected by the Greens. Market economics that has glorified this state of being is now known to be the chief cause of many o the world's ills. What the leaders of the GMSL have been saying in the early 90's on the dangers of exploitative economic paradigms was then laughed off by almost everyone. No one is laughing now. |
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We are dangerously close to self-destruction but hope remains if we think less about ourselves and more about the future |
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Fear that a mad rush for riches may have doomed everyone is making people not only sit up and listen but also try to understand a natural harmony exists and that it is vital to the sustenance of life. Those that had confidently announced in the 60's that they will "conquer" nature are now saying that nature is too powerful for them. They understand now that when they pushed nature for profit, nature pushed back harder - much harder - in ways that no amount of money could ever control. The GMSL hopes that this "global trend" for environmental harmony is not going to be another "profit oriented" action and that it is a genuine desire to turn the way people think completely around (regardless of whether fear, ignorance or understanding drives it).
Our take is simple. There was a time on earth when the highest quality of life for all beings was assured. We may have gone too far to ever go back to that stability now. However, a steadying global mindset is required that is both practical and far-sighted. Despite the terrible times we live in we are incurable optimists. We love our past, enjoy the present and work for a beautiful future. |
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