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Dr Hiranya Sudasinghe: Can a Species Be Protected by Law and Still Be Left Unprotected?
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
STORY 6 OF 10: Part of a series of short stories inspired by our conversation with Dr Hiranya Sudasinghe, sharing what years of experience have taught them to see.
In an office, a species is added to a protected list.
The document is signed. The announcement is made. Its name now has the protection of the law.
In the stream, the fish begins the next morning with exactly the same problems it had the day before.
Legal protection matters.
It can prohibit killing, collecting or trading the species. It can support enforcement and recognise that the animal requires special care.
But a protected name is not yet a recovering population.
Someone still needs to determine
How many remain.
Where they occur.
Whether the population is increasing or declining.
What is causing the decline.
What habitat it requires.
Whether the law is being enforced.
Which intervention is most likely to help.
Whether it worked.
Without this information, a species may become legally important while remaining practically neglected.
Hiranya’s words that inspired this story
“We have a lot of species, not just fish, listed as protected, but what happens after is a bit of a question.”
“We don’t have any long-term monitoring, we don’t have ecological data, we don’t have habitat preference data.”
Why it matters
A law may prevent certain actions.
It does not automatically create
Population surveys
Ecological research
Habitat restoration
Enforcement capacity
Community participation
A recovery plan
Long-term monitoring
What this changes
When a conservation announcement is made, do not ask only,
Was the species protected?
Also ask,
What happens next?
A meaningful plan should identify the threat, action, responsible institution, baseline, monitoring method, expected outcome and review date.
Protection on paper is a beginning.
Nature must experience the protection too.
Next beneath the surface
Even a well-funded conservation programme can fail if activity is mistaken for success.
Meet Dr Hiranya: Read He Chose the Fish
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