Japanese cultural exhibition at National Art Gallery

The Lanka Japan Friendship Society in collaboration with the Embassy of Japan has organised an exhibition of Japanese arts and crafts to be held at the National Art Gallery, Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha, Colombo 7 on April 2, 3 and 4.

The exhibition will feature Bonsai (trees on platters), Ikebana (floral art forms), Origami (art of paper folding), Suiseki (natural rock and mineral formations), Tsuboniwa (Japanese courtyard gardens and landscaping), Japanese ornamental items as well as Japanese gift wrapping etc.

The exhibition will be declared open by the Ambassador for Japan in Sri Lanka, Akio Suda and Dewi Suda on April 2, 2005 at 11 a.m.

In order to provide an opportunity for the public to learn more about the art of Ikebana and origami, the president of the Lanka Japan Friendship Society Lalitha Rajapaksa, has arranged for demonstrations, which will be held as follows:

Ikebana floral arrangements - Demonstrations on Saturday, April 2, 2005 at 4.30 p.m. Sunday, April 3 at 10.30 a.m.

Origami (art of paper folding) - Demonstrations on Sunday, April 2, 2005 at 4.30 p.m. Monday, April 4, 2005 at 8.30 a.m.

The Bonsai, Ikebana and Origami Associations together with individual exhibitors will be presenting their exhibits. As in the past, these exhibits will be of a very high standard and will afford the public a rare opportunity to view these items of Japanese art which are unique in style, simplicity and are natural and meaningful. Symbolic and mythical these arts are appreciated worldwide.

The exhibition will be free of charge for schoolchildren on April 4 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and a nominal entrance fee of Rs. 20 will be charged from the public on the 2nd from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m and on the 3rd and 4th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Jesu Redemptor

An evening of the very best of sacred choral music presented by the choir of St. Benedict's College will be held on April 2 at the college hall at 6.30 p.m.

The choir is one of the top classical choirs in Sri Lanka who have been growing from strength to strength in quality singing, for almost a decade.

The choir over the years has reached great heights performing different types of music, and has produced able singers, conductors and accompanists in their strive for perfection.

The choir will be singing pieces such as Jesu Redemptor, Surely, Hallelujah chorus, Pie Jesu and Awake the harp. This is an offering by St. Benedict's College celebrating the resurrection of Christ - the Lord.

World Heritage park gasps to survive among India's disappearing wetlands

by Biman Mukherji

BHARATPUR, India, (AFP)

Rickshaw-puller Charan Singh scans the landscape of India's most prestigious bird sanctuary and shakes his head after he fails to spot the rare Siberian crane.

"None have come this year. The birds are the star attraction. There is just not enough water to attract them," says 35-year-old Singh, who depends upon tourist traffic to India's most important wetland bird sanctuary.

The Siberian cranes are among the victims of a battle over rights to the water of the Gambhir river between farmers and conservationists that threatens to dry up a wetland covering 29 kilometers (18 miles).

The area is home to a dwindling population of migratory birds north of the Taj Mahal and is designated a World Heritage site. In the past few years farmers have diverted two of three rivers which once flooded the wetlands, leading to a drop of more than 50 percent in the number of birds arriving from northern climates each winter.

Only 5,700 of the 15-17,000 migratory water birds that regularly visit the park arrived this year, according to wildlife officials.

This October the farmers blocked the only remaining river, the Gambhir, which, combined with a poor annual southwest monsoon that sweeps the subcontinent from June to August, led to only a trickle of water reaching the sanctuary, says Arun Prasad, wildlife warden of the park.

"We are now at the mercy of rain gods. If there is heavy rains during the monsoons, then all the reservoirs in the park will once again fill up. But the rains are becoming more and more erratic every year," Prasad says.

Nearly two decades ago the rivers would pour so much water into the wetland, a former duck-hunting plot gifted as a reserve by a royal family 250 years ago, that people would scramble from their homes to higher grounds whenever there was a heavy burst of monsoon rains. Raghuraj Singh, a descendant of the royal Suraj Mal family, says that farmers have slowly choked the supply of water to the sanctuary. "When we were young, we would clap our hands just three times and thousands of birds would take to the skies from the trees. The park looks like a ghost of what it was even a decade ago. We have only our memories to cherish," he says.

The farmers say their livelihoods are more important than the birds and that the Gambhir had to be diverted to irrigate their fields because they did not get enough rain this year to complete the last cycle of watering needed to ripen their wheat crops. When officials tried to open a sluice gate to let the Gambhir flow into the sanctuary this year, thousands of people from villages close to the Panchana Dam pitched tents on the river bed to Bharatpur in protest. "We will let our blood flow with the water if they try to open the sluice gates for the park again. Are the lives of birds and animals more precious than humans?" asks Kamlesh Kumar Minna, a farmer at Mahavirji village near the dam.

The problems confronting Bharatpur are being mirrored across a range of wetlands in India as urbanisation, growing pollution and demands to feed India's billion-plus population place massive demands on water supplies. Prasad said the shrinking water supply to Bharatpur meant that the migratory birds where flying to other wetlands in India, where hunters could stalk them as they lacked the same degree of protection. Even the alternative homes for the birds are dwindling fast.

Around 38 percent of the wetlands in the country have disappeared over a 10-year-period between 1991 to 2001, according to the results of a survey based on satellite imagery conducted by the Space Application Centre in Ahmedabad.

"Municipal wastes are being dumped into them, wetlands are being converted into farmland and entire housing colonies are being built on them," says V.S. Vijayan, director in the Coimbatore-based Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History. The trend is dangerous because it rewards short-term economic gain at the cost of ignoring irreparable damage for recharging groundwater, Vijayan says.