Projects – Mother Land Lanka

MLL’s projects

MLL’s projects are based on the cultivation of rare and traditionally used Sri Lankan herbal plants and consist of the ‘Home Garden Project (in progress)’ and the ‘Herbal Park Project (in planning).’ Recently, MLL have been acting in the Vavuniya District, Northern Province, the centre of the civil war.

MLL’s activities keep step in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the international goals adopted at the UN Summit in 2015. Many of the social issues prevalent in Sri Lanka are not the result of a single problem, but rather are the result of multiple, closely interrelated problems. MLL attempt to solve various issues in the process of doing one MLL project.

Home Garden Project

The Home Garden project will take place in the Vavuniya District, a major battleground of the civil war, and will involve Sinhala, Tamil, Muslims altogether to cultivate herbal plants. In this way, the business of growing herbal plants will become a shared value that transcends ethnoreligious boundaries, promoting reconciliation between peoples and leading to peace in the community.

At present (1st April 2021), we are cultivating 8 species of Sri Lankan indigenous plants with about 30 local families, including Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslims, in the village of Malmaduwa in Vavuniya South Division with the assistant of ALBION, a leading cosmetics company.

The Home Garden project comprises the commercial cultivation of herbal plants on a large scale. MLL believe that the project will create many herbal villages in Vavuniya District, which has been left out of development due to the civil war and no industry. The cultivation of herbal plants will become a local industry in the regions.

Furthermore, the Home Garden project itself is a well-designed peacebuilding project. When companies participate in the project, you do not only get valuable Sri Lankan plants, but you also contribute to society.

MLL call for more companies to join us so that the cultivation of herbal plants can become an industry in this area. If you are interested in Sri Lankan plants and are willing to promote SDGs and CSR activities, we are looking forward to your participation.

Herbal Park Project

(In planning)

The Herbal Park project is the opening, management and operation of a botanical garden of useful plants. All the 1,430 plant species endemic to Sri Lanka will be cultivated here to conserve biodiversity.

In recent years, the development of plant-derived raw materials and products has attracted a lot of attention. The price of plants has risen due to increasing international demand. This has led to the encroachment into the jungles where scarce species grow, resulting in over-gathering and endangering Sri Lanka’s diverse ecosystem.

One of the reasons for these problems is that Sri Lanka has an unsustainable system of ‘collecting’ plants from the jungle and roadsides rather than ‘cultivating’ them. The problem is that the plants are delivered to the companies using the herbs and the pharmaceutical industry without any traceability of who collected the plants, where, how and under what conditions the plants were grown. Therefore, it is necessary to protect the rare herbal plants of Sri Lanka, to propagate the endangered plants and to protect the biodiversity in Sri Lanka.

The Herbal Park will be a centre for research and development for the conservation and sustainable use of herbal plants in collaboration with industry, academia, government and the Ministry of Agriculture, Health, and Ayurveda of Sri Lanka. The Herbal Park will have the following four functions: (1) a general garden for local and international tourists and a research garden for research samples from companies and university researchers; (2) a nursery for conservation and propagation; (3) a composting plant for making compost from food loss, food waste, or other organic waste; and (4) an educational facility for the transmission of Ayurvedic medicine.

MLL shall establish a platform that encourages research, for example, what herbal plants exist in Sri Lanka, how to utilise them in sustainable ways, and how to cultivate in organic ways. If you are interested in Sri Lankan plants and are willing to promote SDGs and CSR activities, we are looking forward to your participation.