NBRO with the support of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Thailand, arranged an e-session on the benefits of Medical Plants for Nature Based Landslide Risk Mitigation. An informative lecture was delivered by Dr. R. M. Dharmadasa at the on 27 May 2020 on this subject.

The lecture was mainly focused on the plant diversity of Sri Lanka, the current situation of medicinal plants industry, bio engineering landslide impact mitigation, use of herbal plants in bio engineering and selection criteria of medicinal plants. A list of proposed herbal plants for bio engineering was also presented in details.

The lecture was summarised with a session of discussion where many distinguished participants, including the representatives of Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, Thailand, added more valuable inputs.

The lecturer, Dr. R. M. Dharmadasa obtained his PhD. in Bioactivity of medicinal plants from University of Sri Jayawardenapura. His key expert areas are essential oils, bioactivity of medicinal plants, pharmacognosy, formulation of insect pheromone based bio-pesticides, plant tissue and cell culture and systematic study on traditional knowledge.