COLOMBO: The head of Sri Lanka's environmental conservation body has warned that the first batch of 1,00,000 endangered monkeys from the cash-strapped country could be heading to test labs in China, media reports said on Monday.
Sri Lanka is planning to export 1,00,000 toque macaques to China, one of its largest bilateral lenders, agriculture minister Mahinda Amaraweera said last week.
The toque macaque is endemic to Sri Lanka and classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list.
Understandably, the move has alarmed environmentalists.
The Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ), Hemantha Withanage warned that the first batch of 1,00,000 endangered monkeys could be heading for test labs in China, according to Daily Mirror Lanka newspaper.
Withanage said these monkeys could be used for testing cosmetic products and medical experiments, the report said.
Amaraweera had said that China's request for 1,00,000 Toque macaques to be exhibited at over 1,000 Chinese zoos could be considered given the large macaque population in Sri Lanka.
Withanage, however, dismissed the minister's claims.
"As per the globally accepted criteria for the definition of zoos, there are only 18 zoos in China that fit the bill, which averages out to 5,000 monkeys per zoo, and so the claim is not credible," he asserted.
"We do not have 100,000 toque monkeys in zoos. Therefore, this situation cannot be justified under the law in the country," the newspaper quoted Withanage as saying.
Commenting on the government's proposal to export monkeys to China, President Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) General Secretary Palitha Range Bandara said even peacocks should be exported, if possible.
“Those who oppose the exportation of Toque monkeys including environmentalists should go to Wanathawilluwa, Anamaduwa and Anuradhapura to see the damage caused by these monkeys and peacocks to the cultivations and witness the losses suffered by the farming community," the Mirror quoted him as saying.
The request from China was made at a time when the local authorities have taken several measures to contain the monkey population in the country, according to media reports last week.
Sri Lanka bans almost all live animal exports and the proposed sale comes at a time when the country faces its worst-ever economic crisis.
The country, however, removed several species from its protected list this year, including all three of its monkey species as well as peacocks and wild boars, allowing farmers to kill them.
The toque macaque is known to destroy crops in several parts of Sri Lanka, and even sometimes attacks people.
Authorities in Sri Lanka have pegged the monkey population in the country between two to three million.
Withanage has requested the Sri Lankan government to revoke this decision.
“We hope that the minister will revoke the decision. He cannot decide on exporting animals to other countries on his own, but the decision can be taken by the Wildlife Director-General justifying the situation," he said.
"If not, the CEJ will take legal action against the decision under the current wildlife law,” Withanage added.
Sri Lanka is keen to fulfil China's request as Beijing is one of Sri Lanka’s biggest bilateral lenders.
Last week, China said it was willing to negotiate a medium and long-term debt disposal plan with Colombo in a “friendly manner” to enable the crisis-struck island nation to achieve debt sustainability.
In January this year, China gave debt-ridden Sri Lanka the financing assurances required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to unlock the bailout package, days after India strongly backed the island nation's efforts to secure the loan from the global lender to recover from its worst-ever economic crisis.
In March, the IMF approved a USD 3 billion bailout programme to help Sri Lanka overcome its economic crisis and catalyse financial support from other development partners, a move welcomed by Colombo as a "historic milestone" in the critical period.
The IMF bailout, the 17th in Sri Lanka’s history, was approved following prolonged discussions over Colombo's unsustainable debt.
Sri Lanka was hit by an unprecedented financial crisis in 2022, the worst since its independence from Britain in 1948, due to a severe paucity of foreign exchange reserves, sparking a major political and humanitarian crisis in the island nation.