.png){kind=small}
Dr Hiranya Sudasinghe: What If the Children Who Play in a Stream Became Its Best Protectors?
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
STORY 10 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.
Every afternoon, children enter the stream.
They know where the water becomes deep, which stones are slippery and where the small fish gather when the current slows.
They may know the stream in a way no visiting expert ever will.
What they may not know is that one of those ordinary-looking fishes occurs nowhere else on Earth.
Hiranya believes organisations based far from these habitats can help by taking practical knowledge into the communities closest to them.
This education should not arrive with the assumption that outsiders understand the stream and local children do not.
The children already know where it floods.
They know which pool holds water during the dry months.
They know where people wash, cross, fish and play.
Science can add another layer to that knowledge.
It can explain that shade matters.
That clearing the bank changes the water.
That releasing an aquarium fish can harm native species.
That the small fish beneath the surface may be globally rare.
People often damage habitats without intending to.
A person clears the bank because it looks untidy.
Someone releases a fish because saving it feels kind.
Waste enters the water because the effect downstream remains invisible.
A child who understands those consequences may carry the knowledge home.
Years later, that child may become the teacher, landowner, official, scientist or community leader deciding what happens to the stream.
Hiranya’s words that inspired this story
“There are so many NGOs, mostly based in Colombo. I think if you could do something more practical, like school awareness, where you could go to those places and have some workshops.”
“Especially for the young kids who are the ones who play every day in those streams.”
“If that bit of knowledge was also given to those kids and young people to say how much we need to appreciate this local wealth.”
“We sometimes do things without understanding the negative consequences. Awareness helps to not do that again.”
Why it matters
A child may already know every pool and bend in a stream without knowing that one of its inhabitants exists nowhere else.
Education can connect scientific knowledge with lived experience.
It can turn familiarity into pride and pride into stewardship.
What this changes
A practical school programme could help children
Identify native life
Understand why shade and banks matter
Recognise the danger of released aquarium species
Observe habitat changes
Record sightings safely
Speak with parents and neighbours
Participate in simple monitoring
Feel pride in protecting something globally unique
The children already know the stream.
The opportunity is to help them understand what the rest of the world stands to lose if it disappears.
Complete the journey
The final lesson returns us to the beginning.
Conservation does not start only in laboratories, government offices or large organisations.
It may begin with a child looking into a stream and realising that the small fish below is not ordinary at all.
Return to the cover: He Chose the Fish
Return to Story 1: What Happens When Conservation Gets a Fish’s Name Wrong?
Comments