A Simple Man and Great Scientist

by Sarath Fernando

(August 21, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Vidyajothi Dr. Ray Wijewardane was one of the topmost scientists in Sri Lanka. His contributions are well known in the country and in the rest of the world. He is the person who first designed the land master hand tractor. One of his most favorite efforts was with aircraft. He is known to have attempted to build his own aircraft and fly it himself, when he was only a young college student studying at S. Thomas’ College, Mt. Lavinia. His first attempt failed and he crashed down flying only a very short distance. He says that he was given a public punishment for this attempt by the principal of the school and the reason given for punishment was not because he tried to fly but because he did not do the job properly.Later he continued his ambition in his life studying aircraft engineering in foreign universities and also had practical training in building aircraft, working in such factories. Later he built several aircraft and flew them himself successfully. Once while flying his aircraft he landed in India. He had run out of fuel and did not have money to refuel it. So, he sold his aircraft and found money to return home.

We have very great respect and regard for him, not only for his tremendous contributions in science, but also because of the fact that he spent his scientific life to serve society in a positive manner. His father advised him that making aircraft was not an effective way of finding a living, he may continue it as his ambition but to do something else as his way of living. He then studied agriculture and specialized in it, becoming an expert agronomist. He practised his agriculture on his own and he had a principle that he would not advise anyone to do anything before trying it out himself. He believed that farmers do not trust any advice unless they see the adviser living by what he preaches.

One of his greatest efforts, as far as we know, is in the development of Dendro Power. The problem of generating enough power for uses in Sri Lanka is a big challenge the country has been facing for quite some time. We have reached almost the maximum potential in hydro power and we have been looking for other sources of power for quite some time. Dr. Ray Wijewardana has been working on this issue with a few other scientists for several years. They are of the view that Dendro is one of the most effective ways of solving the issue of power generation.

Dr. Ray Wijewardane worked out these benefits and potential and argued that Dendro is not only a source of power and energy but is a valuable source of improving soil fertility and agriculture. This added advantage has now become very beneficial since chemical fertilizer has become not only very expensive but also has begun to cause very serious health problems such as kidney diseases. Pollution of water, soil, food and environment have become massive problems that are destroying soil fertility and availability of healthy food at affordable cost.

Discovering these tremendous advantages of gliricidia growing in recovery of fertile land and improvement of agriculture in the country Dr. Ray Wijewardane and others started working on this approach not only from a power generation point of view but also on an approach of environment and agriculture improvement.

He amply demonstrated the viability of this approach with the experiments he carried out in his coconut plantation, the Kohombe Estate. On this estate of 150 acres of coconut he has succeeded in utilizing no external fertilizer other than the Gliricidia and Tithonia ("Wal Suriyakantha") plants that has been grown in the estate itself.

Also using the twigs taken from the Gliricidia plants he produced his own power in the estate to do all the lighting in the several houses and to do all other work that requires power such as water pumping, running the coconut husking machine. There has been an ongoing dialogue with the government and the electricity Board to accept this approach as our alternative approach to power generation.

We consider this to be one of his most valuable contributions since adopting coal power as the solution to our power needs would mean that within the next ten years or so, we will have to spend more than the total added income from exporting tea, rubber and coconut to import the coal that is required. These figures have been worked out and shown by these scientists.

This is in addition to the tremendous damage caused to environment in utilizing coal power which is one of the worst pollutants. In spite of all this work done by scientists such as Dr. Ray Wijewardane, the Government has not looked at this option sufficiently seriously. He did not use his science to earn money, but he spent the money that he earned for further advancement of science and the well-being of humans. One way in which the tremendous contributions made to society by Dr. Ray Wijewardane and the group of scientists could be appreciated would be by committing ourselves to fighting on to bring their battles to victory.