On November 22, 2023, H.E. the Ambassador participated in the final conference of the III International Children and Youth Award called "Ecology is everyone's business" at the invitation of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation.

"Ecology is everyone's business" is an Award of Rosprirodnadzor, the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources, which was established on March 31, 2021 and is awarded for interesting, non-standard ideas, initiatives and projects dedicated to environmental protection, careful attitude to nature and popularization of ecological culture.
The Award is held annually and involves children, youth and adults in the environmental agenda. The geography of the project covered all 5 continents - Australia, Africa, Eurasia, North and South America. During its three seasons, more than 130 thousand participants from 70 countries applied.
Greetings of the President H.E. Vladimir Putin was read out to the esteemed audience on the opening of the conference. President Putin underlined that "it is gratifying that we have a large-scale educational project, which has already proved its relevance, designed to educate the younger generation in environmental culture, to form a careful and responsible attitude to the invaluable natural resources..."
In her congratulatory and motivation remarks, H.E. Prof. Janitha A. Liyanage emphasized that the number of participants from foreign countries proves that Ecology is a pressing topic for all the countries and has no boundaries.
Encouraging the activity in the fight for a clean planet, H.E. the Ambassador Prof. Janitha A. Liyanage announced that younger generation from Sri Lanka had shown serious commitment towards the environment protection. 125 works were received from Sri Lanka in the third season of the project. Thus, Sri Lanka is among the top-5 foreign countries in terms of the number of applications for the Award over the third period of the project.
Ambassador Prof. Janitha A. Liyanage stressed the importance to be engaged in the ecological education processes, to create proper awareness and deepen the knowledge while developing skills in order to face the increasing impacts of climate change along with environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, pollution, etc.
The event was attended by the Special Representative of the President of Russia on the Issues of Environmental Activities, Ecology and Transport H.E. Mr. Sergey Ivanov, Russian senior officials and Ambassadors of participating countries.

Special Representative of the President of Russia on the Issues of Environmental Activities, Ecology and Transport H.E. Mr. Sergey Ivanov