Environment Lanka | observations and views of the stakeholder workshop on the country’s position

Table 2: Results of the observations and views of the stakeholder workshop on the country’s position in meeting the MDG targets

Issue	2015 MDG target	Will it be met (% who think not)	Effect of war	Effect of tsunami	Current effect of tsunami rehabilitation
Surface and ground water pollution	Reduce by 75%	100	Hampered improvement	Major salination effect on coast and agricultural land	Minimal effects in resettlement camps
Solid waste and sewage disposal	All municipalities ok	91	Hampered improvement	Major concrete rubble problem	Created new sewage problems in camps
Land degradation and erosion	Reduce by 30%	86	Made worse	Major change in coastal topography with increased erodability	Minimal effect
Coral reef damage	Reduce by 50%	78	No effect	Major damage in limited locations	Supplied non traditional boats need corridors cut into coral
Mangrove damage	Reduce by 50%	78	Made worse (military clearance)	Limited effect initially but may die later due to environmental change	Minimal effect
Sand mining	Reduce by 50%	96	No effect	Major change in coastal topography with increased erodability	EA and EIA being relaxed so highly likely dunes will be reduced and mining will be increased
Biodiversity loss	Reduce by 50%	87	No effect	No accurate data	Minimal effect
Forest loss	Reduce by 50%	74	Net positive effect*	No effect on dense forest only individual or plantation trees	Higher price (doubling) for timber may increase illegal logging
Safe drinking water	Reduce no of people without by 50%	65	No effect	Salination of wells, but pre tsunami baseline shows most wells were toxic anyway	Many examples of NGOs over extracting water leading to salination of wells