The President was speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the Presidential Environmental Awards – 2017 held yesterday (16th Oct.) at the BMICH. The inauguration ceremony of the national program ‘Sri Lanka Next – A Blue Green Era’ was also held in line with this.

The national program ‘Sri Lanka Next – A Blue Green Era’ is held for two days. Lectures, seminars, discussions and other events have been organized under this program, which ends today (Oct 17).

The member countries of the United Nations came into an agreement to take every possible action to control the global warming, at the UN Climate Change Conference held in France in 2015. Sri Lanka signed that agreement as the first Asian country.

Speaking further the President said everybody should fulfill their responsibilities to to take the country towards a green development while protecting the nature, nurtured with trees and rivers, gradually getting rid of the concrete towns.

He said everybody should be committed to the environmental conservation without any delay in this era in which the environment has become a threat to humans.

President Sirisena presented the environmental awards at this occasion.