Reporting back to Melbourne….

Giving a presentation at Department of Sustainability and Environment

I had a very successful official visit to Melbourne from 24^th November to 4^th December 2011. The purpose of the visit was to present the success of the river journey (Kelani Nadee Yatra) to Journeys for  Climate Justice (JCJ) . It was very nice to meet all the advisory board members including former Governor of Victoria Prof. David De Kretser who was very happy to hear about the success of the journey. I had so many meetings with people who are into energy sector, finance sector, land care and Climate Change areas. All meetings gave many ideas, contacts and networking opportunities to develop JCJ and also to support youth projects started in Sri Lanka after the river journey. I also had the opportunity to talk to Australian media along with Jim Crosthwaite who is the co founder of JCJ. I had interviews with SBS TV news and Channel 31 too.  Sri Lankan community living in Melbourne had organized us a very nice meeting where I presented about our work and also showed the documentary made on Kelani Nadee Yathra. I should thank our friend Manjith and friends for arranging this excellent meeting for Sri Lankan community. There were 3 more main public talks organized at Westgarth where we lived last year, Geelong and in Glen Weverly. 

Giving a talk at Sri Lankan event in Glen Weverly

It was a very short visit with many presentations, meetings and public talks and also catching up with our old friends very briefly. After 9 days in Melbourne I am in New Zealand now, attending the 25^th International Congress on Conservation Biology. I have to give a presentation on our Pelican research we did for ECO-V.