ICRAN Small
Grant
Continuation and Strengthening of the Sustainable Livelihood
Enhancement and Development Process within the Communities of Bar Reef,
Kalpitiya, Sri Lanka
 Under
the ICRAN EU South Asia Project, completed in 2008, the Sustainable
Livelihood Enhancement and Development (SLED) process was developed in
collaboration with IUCN, IMM and partner organisations in South Asia.
Small grant projects were initiated in selected communities to
implement the Discovery, Direction and Doing phases of the SLED
framework, resulting in several pilot projects.
Due
to the success of this community level approach, the Marine and Coastal
Resources Conservation Foundation (MCRCF), a local partner, was able to
strengthen the SLED program and extend it to other fishing villages
also highly dependent on the resources of the Bar Reef. Collaboration
between the Centre for Rural Empowerment and the Environment (CREE) and
ICRAN has facilitated this continued implementation of the validated
SLED process.
 The Kalpitiya peninsula, in the north-west of Sri Lanka,
is about 100 kilometres long and sustains a broad range of ecosystems,
among them Sri Lanka’s most extensive coral reef complex, the Bar Reef
Marine Sanctuary. Once rich in biodiversity, the reef is now under
great threat by a number of natural and human factors. Despite its
status as a marine sanctuary, the Bar Reef remains extremely vulnerable
to resource exploitation and degradation due to the lack of sustainable
management practices. The reef plays a pivotal role in the lives of
local coastal communities, where fishing is the primary occupation. Sri
Lanka has recently lifted a 30-year, conflict-driven fishing ban in the
region, which has led to a dramatic increase in the use of the reef’s
ecosystem services, resulting in greater reef degradation, a reduction
in per capita catch size and an increase in poverty.
 In 2010, the
deteriorating situation in the area led ICRAN to sponsor a local
Sri-Lankan partner, the Marine & Coastal Resources Conservation
Foundation (MCRCF), through the Centre for Rural Empowerment & the
Environment (CREE), to implement the Sustainable Livelihoods
Enhancement and Diversification (SLED) programme. The objectives of the
project were designed to increase the socio-economic status of local
coastal communities, ensure sustainable livelihoods and use of marine
resources through awareness-raising and education, and to empower local
fisher women.
With the support of locally
established fisher societies, the project was able to achieve a number
of successes by introducing livelihood alternatives to the project
beneficiaries. Eleven villagers were taught improved home-gardening
methods and were given seeds to grow their own food, which proved
highly popular and allowed families to allocate some of their money
away from buying vegetables to other needs, such as child education. Another
aspect of the program involved training five project beneficiaries in commercial
seaweed cultivation, whereas villagers had previously depended on
collecting seaweed in the wild. A further five individuals were introduced
to ornamental fish culture, and were taught profit-maximising husbandry
techniques to allow faster fish maturation rates and low production costs.
Similarly, two project beneficiaries were shown how to cultivate
Tilapia and were provided with Tilapia fingerlings to kick-start their
businesses.
In addition to these
activities, three awareness raising workshops were  conducted in
order to inform resource users about the reef ecosystem, the benefits
of resource-protection, the negative impacts of destructive fishing
techniques and the results of over-fishing. Suggestions were also made
on how to reduce the threat of fishing to the reef ecosystem. The
workshops were accompanied by the strategic installation of three
‘awareness boards’, which aimed to inform communities about the key
messages of the SLED approach. The text was written in Tamil or
Sinhala, in addition to English, depending on the location. The response
to the workshops as well as the boards was resoundingly positive, and
led to a great deal of awareness and discussion of alternative
livelihoods.
Overall,
the project generated a number of successes, and valuable lessons were
learned that will inform future projects in the area.
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