Pandemics vs. forests, food and immunity

• Interview with ecologist Dr. Ranil Senanayake

By Surya Vishwa

Having qualified in ecology, epidemiological history and biogeography from the University of California, Dr. Ranil Senanayake returned to Sri Lanka in 1978 as one of South Asia’s first systems ecologists and joined the then newly created Ministry of Mahaveli as a consultant ecologist. 

He writes as follows in his book on 30 years of attempting to affect policy change in Sri Lanka: “It was the time of the Mahaveli; many important planning decisions had to be made and environmental impacts closely assessed. ‘The purpose of an ecologist is to facilitate landscaping’, was more or less the bureaucrats’ understanding of my role. So I was tasked with creating an effective landscaping unit in the land development department and training department staff in root balling and transporting large trees. The first results still line the road to the airport today.”

“My visits to the field brought me to Ministry reforestation projects. Examining these ‘forests’ it was clear that something was wrong. Although it was claimed these plantations were to replace the lost forests, there was no gain except in timber, and that too of poor quality. But no one seemed to be interested in instituting change.”

“My opposition to Pinus monocultures as forestry, and my opposition to bringing oil palm into the newly developed Maduru Oya lands, saw my demise from the establishment.”

Resigning from his job at the Ministry of Mahaveli and selling his Colombo house in order to buy a neglected tea estate with degraded soil, in the village of Mirahawatte, Belipola, Dr. Ranil Senanayake went on to introduce to the world the concept of ‘analog foresting’ – man-made forests which do not distort but work with nature and within few years the forlorn tea estate was transformed into a forest that was home to many living beings. 

In this current backdrop of pandemics, at a time when environmentalists are sounding alarm over destruction of forests in Sri Lanka and the rest of the planet, the Harmony page spoke to Dr. Senanayake on the importance of forests for mankind. Following are excerpts:

Q: Could you explain how an analog forest connects trees to people and people to trees and how this connection figures today in this age of strange viruses?

 Forests are massive reservoirs of biomass and biodiversity. They are also diverse and long lived. Viruses are unique in the fact that they are found in all representations of living biomass; short lived, long lived, macro or micro. As we reduce the diversity and volume of living biomass through forest loss and human biomass becomes the major pool of long lived biomass, the huge diversity of virus’ losing their hosts will have to mutate to use any replacement biomass if they are not to go extinct. While forest conservation is essential, forest restoration must address both diversity and longevity to maintain its buffering capacity.

I am currently developing values for Primary Ecosystem Services (PES) from a forest (www.restore.earth) while also enhancing the Forest Gardens in Sri Lanka and elsewhere (www.belipolaarboretum.earth).

Q: From an ecological dimension – how important are forests for the continued survival of the human species?

 Forests represent the largest production of Primary Ecosystem Services (PES) on earth. If you consider the land area of the planet about 148,220,553 sq. km. The leaves of the trees growing on it has an area 200 times bigger about 29,644,110,627 sq. km. This area is reducing dramatically with the loss of forests. This means less oxygen, clean water and food to sustain humanity.

Q: The Kogi aborigine tribe had in 1988 and 2012 given a warning to mankind that the world as we knew it will end if humans continue to destroy the world with over concretisation and deforestation, which they saw as the literal ‘killing’ of their mother, the earth. They had warned first in 1988 and then 2012 about new diseases without cure if we keep on destroying our forests. Some modern scientists they spoke to scoffed at them. Your comments? http://www.ft.lk/harmony_page/A-glimpse-into-the-message-of-the-Kogi-indigenous-tribe-protectors-of-the-Great-Mother-the-Earth/10523-700595 http://www.ft.lk/harmony_page/Following-the-Kogi-footsteps-to-be-protectors-of-this-earth/10523-700891

They are correct, it is the addiction to fossil energy that will destroy the ability to live. The Shuar tribe of Ecuador state, “Oil represents the spirits of the dead, ask it for power and you sacrifice your children.” Every time fossil energy is used, the threat of climate change gets closer. Most modern scientists would agree with the view that we are heading for a catastrophic future if we continue to burn fossil fuels for ‘development’.

Q: Why is there more research on chemical drugs and fewer on the antibacterial and antifungal influence of forests on human health?

Because it is easier to sell a product as opposed to a service.

Q: The term Forest Bathing (taking in the forest atmosphere), emerged in Japan in the 1980s after a pioneering study done with two control groups, showed that when people breathe in these forest chemicals, their bodies respond with increased long lasting immunity. Do you know of more studies of similar nature? 

Yes there have been studies in Norway and Finland that demonstrate the ability of forests to increase immune reaction of urban dwellers. We are exploring this effect through the man-made forest at the Belipola Arboretum (www.belipolaarboretum.earth) and it seems valid here too.

Q: What are your thoughts on the link between Lankan water heritage and forestry?

I can do no more than to quote the Rt. Hon. D.S. Senanayake who stated: “It is of importance to remember the part played in the conservation of water by the forests of the country. With the evidence daily accumulating of the wisdom of our forefathers, we need scarcely doubt that it was not merely the idea of making the mountain country difficult of approach by the foreign invader that caused them to preserve unfilled and uncleared the dense vegetation of their mountain slopes. We may readily believe that they deliberately left these untouched in order to provide that abundant supply of water on which they might draw for the benefit of man.”

Q: The British Food Waste Charity, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) in its 2020 annual report points out that Britain is hurtling towards water shortages and urges farmers to plant trees to foster water. Your comments on Sri Lanka?

In Sri Lanka we have a tradition of ‘Forest Gardens’ where planting and caring for trees is a way of life inherited to us from our forefathers. We should celebrate this fact and work towards enriching this experience, to respond to forest loss and to provide an example for other nations on land development. 

Q: How do you see the Sri Lankan paradox we see in general of conservation laws and the parallel forest destruction?

 There were laws extending protection to wildlife as far back as 2,000 years ago. The historical record suggests that in the last 200 years, not only have we taken the culture away from indigenous peoples such as the Veddah, but also from the traditional people of this island through the pecuniary process called ‘economic development’ totally antithetical to a traditional Buddhist culture.

As Carl Jung notes; “Those who know nothing about nature are of course, neurotic. Because, they are not adapted to reality.” We have had in this country bureaucracies and political systems functioning with absolutely no knowledge of nature and leading us along their neurotic, ignorant paths.

Q: Our current modern view of forests is more akin to seeing them as a collection of trees, instead of as an organism of its own and a lifegiver to an entire eco system. Your comments?

Gautama Buddha (250 BC) provided an intriguing meaning when he observed that “A forest is the most benevolent of all beings, giving generously of all its life processes. It even affords shade to the axeman who would fell it”. This reference to a forest as an entity, reflects the view of a forest as a complex integrated system. This is very different to economic models which see forests only as a source of revenue. In a pure economic sense forests are collections of trees of varying timber value. Although ecosystem values are being discussed they still have to be incorporated into working models. This narrow perception has allowed application of monoculture to meet with most global forestry needs. We must remember that ‘forestry’ or ‘the art and science of growing forests’ was practiced informally for over 2,000 years in our part of the world. 

Q: A herpetologist in a recent discussion noted that there is a major danger in Sri Lanka posed by tree growing enthusiasts to the eco system because they grow trees that are out of the usual locations that these trees are native to and by doing so cause in the long term, the death of many creatures in the eco system. What is your advice to forest growers?

 A forest is not only a collection of tree cycling nutrients and growing a mature soil, it is also a vast collection of other organisms varying from animals to plants to microbes that are themselves, components of interlinked trophic webs. A knowledge of forest adapted organisms is important to forest design, especially in the context of biodiversity conservation. Forest-adapted organisms are also good indicator species, that can warn of negative trends or signal positive changes to a forest. The forest modified environment has provided the conditions for the evolution of a vast array of species whose niches are confined to forests. 

The fact that less than 1% of forests biodiversity is represented by trees forces a whole new re-evaluation procedure for forests. The recognition of the value of non-timber products for commerce and non-tree biodiversity for conservation action are indicators of the change we need when looking at forests. All those interested in growing forests must recognise the importance of this non tree biodiversity. 

Q: The concept of a pharmacy in today’s understanding is about four concrete walls and Western medicine (Allopathic) tablets. However at the time that Robert Knox got stranded in Ceylon and before health became an industry the pharmacy of our indigenous medicine was the forest as Knox observed. Your comments?

As long as we use economic growth as the national indicator of development we are lost. Where this purported progress is taking us no one knows! COVID gives us a chance to rethink our ways and escape from this mindless trap. It gives us an opportunity to contemplate the need to make forests places where we once again as we did before in our past, go to for our food and medicine. But for nations like Lanka, return to the forests for medicine and for food will only happen when we heed the founding father of this nation the Rt. Hon. D.S. Senanayake who stated: “The performance of the Government must be judged by the larder of the poorest of its homes”. This seems to be a real goal to progress towards, not mindless metrics.

Q: Could you comment on the two books you have authored?

 The title of my first book, ‘Clowns to the left of me Jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle again’ (Thirty years of attempting policy change in Sri Lanka) says what it is. My second book on the ‘Exotic Medicinal Plants of Sri Lanka’ was an attempt to enrich the traditional plant knowledge, with the medicinal traditions of plants, now common in Sri Lanka, but whose origin was not inherently from here but introduced from many countries over a period of time. 

Q: In my previous interview with you in 2019 in this page we spoke on forest fires. Any further comments on the danger of this?

 The fires raging through the world is a clear indicator of the dangerous situations we will have to face in a hotter, drier future. In Sri Lanka we have been relatively lucky that we have yet to experience a hot, dry year. But preparing for one would seem to be a sensible course of action for the Government. Also needed is for steps to prevent people from igniting forest fires for whatever reason.

Q: Chemical agriculture that was first introduced in the 1960s and then supported by the FAO was announced by the same organisation about five years ago to be a major threat to health of people in developing countries. Do you think humans still have a chance to create biodiversity forestry as a culture of food production for a non-poisonous way of life?

 It is not too late to involve the farmer as an equal partner in agricultural research. Below is the statement from the Sri Lanka Farmers Forum to the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research CGIAR (1998):

“In fact it is our community who has contributed to the possibility of food security in every country since mankind evolved from a hunter-gather existence. We have watched for many years, as the progression of experts, scientists and development agents passed through our communities with some or another facet of the modern scientific world. We confess that at the start we were unsophisticated in matters of the outside world and welcomed this input. We followed advice and we planted as we were instructed. The result was a loss of the varieties of seeds that we carried with us through history, often spanning three or more millennia. The result was the complete dependence of high input crops that robbed us of crop independence. In addition we farmers, producers of food, respected for our ability to feed populations, were turned into the poisoners of land and living things, including fellow human beings. The result in Sri Lanka is that we suffer from social and cultural dislocation and suffer the highest pesticide related death toll on the planet. Was this the legacy that you the agricultural scientists wanted to bring to us? We think not. We think that you had good motives and intentions, but left things in the hands of narrowly educated, insensitive people.”