Mining in Sri Lanka: Community Action Against Environmental Hazards

In the late 1990s, a quiet farming region in north-central Sri Lanka became the centre of one of South Asia’s most important environmental struggles. The government wanted to lease the country’s only major phosphate deposit, lying beneath the village of Eppawela, to a foreign mining consortium. Standing against this plan were the people who lived on that land: paddy farmers, a Buddhist monk, trade unionists, and scientists. What followed was a rare victory for grassroots action, ending in a Supreme Court judgment that still shapes environmental law in the region. This is the story of how an ordinary community stopped a billion-dollar mining project.

The Eppawela phosphate deposit and the proposed project 🔗

Eppawela is a town in the Anuradhapura District of Sri Lanka’s North Central Province, roughly 175 kilometres from Colombo. Beneath it lies an apatite deposit estimated at around 60 million metric tons of phosphate-rich rock, the only known resource of its kind in the country. Phosphate is a key ingredient in fertiliser, and for decades the deposit was used modestly. The state ground the rock into powder and sold it locally as rock phosphate fertiliser, while Sri Lanka continued to import processed varieties at significant cost.

The idea of large-scale extraction was first conceived in 1992 under the United National Party government. By 1997 it had taken concrete shape. The government moved to sign a Mineral Investment Agreement with the US company Freeport-McMoRan and its affiliate IMC Agrico, along with local partners, to explore and mine the deposit. The plan handed the resource to the consortium on a 30-year lease for the manufacture of phosphate fertiliser, largely for export.

Critics quickly pointed out a troubling detail. The deposit could realistically sustain controlled extraction for two to three centuries. The proposed project, however, was designed to exhaust the richest reserves within about twelve years, raising fears of rapid depletion and even desertification of the surrounding land.

What was at stake 🔗

The opposition was not driven by sentiment alone. The Eppawela region is an interconnected system of water, soil, settlement, and history, and large-scale open-pit mining threatened all of it at once.

The ancient water management system 🔗

Anuradhapura sits at the heart of Sri Lanka’s “dry zone,” a landscape that has been farmed for over two thousand years through an intricate network of tanks and canals. Among the most important is the Jayaganga, an ancient irrigation channel regarded as a remarkable feat of hydraulic engineering. This system feeds thousands of small reservoirs that sustain rice cultivation. Mining on the scale proposed risked contaminating groundwater, disrupting drainage, and damaging a heritage water network that had functioned for centuries.

Farmland, biodiversity, and livelihoods 🔗

The villagers of Eppawela were mostly paddy and dairy farmers who owned and worked the land themselves. Open-pit phosphate mining would have stripped away fertile topsoil and left behind degraded ground, ending the long-term agricultural productivity of the region. Local residents, activists, and professionals warned that extensive operations would cause displacement, ecological degradation, and lasting loss of soil fertility. The processing of phosphate into fertiliser also involves chemicals such as sulphuric and phosphoric acid, raising the spectre of long-term pollution.

Cultural heritage and displacement 🔗

Eppawela lies within one of Sri Lanka’s most historically significant zones, dotted with ancient temples, schools, and settlements. Buddhist temples, government buildings, and entire villages faced destruction. Residents feared that around 12,000 families would be uprooted and resettled elsewhere, severing them from land their families had farmed for generations.

A coalition of unlikely allies 🔗

What made the Eppawela movement so effective was the breadth of the people who joined it. This was not a single-interest protest. It brought together groups that rarely act in concert.

The monk-led committee 🔗

At the centre stood the Committee for the Protection of the Eppawela Phosphate Deposits, led by Venerable Mahamankadawala Piyaratana Thera, the chief monk of the historic Galkanda temple in the area. As a respected religious figure and the North Central Province’s Deputy Sanghanayaka, he gave the campaign moral authority and a unifying voice. His committee organised continuous protest marches and demonstrations both in Eppawela and in Colombo, drawing wide public and media attention. He framed the issue plainly as a matter of survival, telling reporters the people would not surrender their land, farms, and lives.

Scientists, workers, and clergy 🔗

In March 2000, the movement reached its peak when an estimated 7,000 people marched through central Colombo. Farmers from Eppawela were joined by scientists, trade unionists, and clergy from Sri Lanka’s major religious communities. Protesters carried banners asserting their right to the land and demanding that the foreign company leave. Crucially, scientific institutions lent their weight too. Studies by the National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka and the National Science Foundation concluded that the agreement would be both an environmental and an economic disaster, giving the campaign credibility that the government found hard to dismiss.

The economic argument and its weaknesses 🔗

The government’s central justification was that Sri Lanka lacked the capital, machinery, and technical knowledge to exploit the deposit, and that the project would bring in much-needed foreign exchange. Opponents challenged this on the numbers themselves. They argued that the cost of mining the raw rock was relatively low and well within the country’s means, while the expensive part, processing the rock into fertiliser, was where the foreign firm stood to profit most. Independent financial analysis suggested the terms favoured the company so heavily that Sri Lanka risked giving away a long-term national asset for short-term gain. The argument that the country would “starve” without the project was, in the eyes of critics, a justification for handing over a finite public resource on lopsided terms.

From the streets to the Supreme Court 🔗

Public pressure alone might not have stopped a determined government. The decisive blow came through the courts. In October 1999, seven residents of Eppawela, including Venerable Piyaratana Thera, filed a fundamental rights application in the Supreme Court under Article 126 of the Constitution. They alleged that the proposed agreement would violate their rights under Articles 12(1), 14(1)(g) and 14(1)(h), which protect equality, the freedom to engage in a lawful occupation, and freedom of movement and residence. The non-profit Environmental Foundation Limited supported them with scientific and legal research.

The Bulankulama judgment 🔗

The resulting case, Bulankulama and others v. Secretary, Ministry of Industrial Development (2000), is now a cornerstone of environmental jurisprudence in the region. The respondents argued that the state, as trustee of the country’s natural resources, could decide such matters and that individuals could not claim a rights violation in what was essentially a public-interest dispute. The Court rejected this. It held that it had jurisdiction to hear the case and that an imminent infringement of fundamental rights had been established.

Most significantly, the bench drew on principles of international environmental law. It applied the doctrines of sustainable development, public trust, and intergenerational equity, and referred to the Stockholm and Rio declarations as guiding standards. Under the public trust doctrine, the Court reasoned that the state’s organs are guardians holding the people’s resources in trust, with a duty to preserve them for present and future generations. It ordered the respondents not to enter into any agreement over the Eppawela deposit until a proper exploration study was completed, its results published, and approval obtained from the Central Environmental Authority.

The outcome and its legacy 🔗

The combined force of mass mobilisation and legal action proved decisive. The project as proposed was abandoned, and the foreign consortium did not proceed. Beyond saving Eppawela, the judgment transformed how Sri Lankan courts approach development and the environment. It established that citizens can use fundamental rights to challenge state decisions that threaten the environment, and that economic arguments cannot override the state’s duty to protect natural resources held in public trust.

The case became a reference point for environmental litigation across South Asia, sitting alongside the public-interest environmental jurisprudence developed by courts elsewhere in the region. It demonstrated that the precautionary principle and intergenerational equity, often dismissed as “soft law,” can carry real weight in a courtroom when communities organise and present credible evidence.

Why this case matters 🔗

The Eppawela story is studied not because it was unique but because it shows a repeatable pattern. A vulnerable community facing displacement built a broad coalition, grounded its claims in science, secured moral leadership, sustained public protest, and then converted that momentum into a binding legal victory. Each element reinforced the others. Protests created visibility, scientific reports created credibility, and the courts turned public concern into enforceable rights. For anyone studying environmental movements, it is a clear illustration of how grassroots action can hold the state accountable.

What do you think? If a natural resource could earn a country foreign exchange but destroy the homes and farms of thousands, how should a government weigh those competing interests? And when ordinary citizens believe a development project will harm their environment, should the courts have the power to override elected governments?

References

1. https://lawlibrary.aipazz.com/eppawala-case-study-landmark-case-sri-lanka/
2. https://www.efl.lk/legal-action-against-illegal-eppawela-phosphate-extraction-eppawala-case/
3. http://www.ipsnews.net/1998/09/environment-sri-lanka-villages-on-phosphate-rich-land-resist-mine/
4. https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2018/08/30/yahapalana-as-a-wake-up-call-part-5/
5. http://www.ipsnews.net/2000/03/environment-sri-lanka-massive-protest-against-us-mining-project/
6. https://sri-lanka.vlex.com/vid/bulankulama-and-others-v-954454018
7. https://www.globalhealthrights.org/bulankulama-ors-v-the-secretary-ministry-of-industrial-development-ors/
8. https://lpr.adb.org/resource/bulankulama-vs-secretary-ministry-industrial-development-2000-3-sri-lr-243-sri-lanka