Publication details
Marine Protected Areas of Sri Lanka: Strengths, Shortcomings and Suggestions for Improvement
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | The number of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Sri Lanka is increasing. However, there is a rising concern that they are just “paper parks”—areas declared as legally protected with no actual effective conservation. Decision in this matter is difficult as there is very little available biodiversity data to evaluate its evolution in time and therefore success of the MPAs. We therefore chose a different approach—a review of available resources about protective measures, their enforcement, and MPAs planning and management to identify strengths and shortcomings of their factual protection. This was done by identifying their actual level and stage of protection, checking the criteria of effective protection, and identifying gaps in this data. Several patterns were recognised showing differences in factual protection between multiple categories of the MPAs. On the other hand, some of the indicators were surprisingly stable across MPA categories. Problematic enforcement of regulations, little respect towards the MPAs from local communities and lack of measurable goals and objectives were identified as the biggest shortcomings leading to harmful activities such as unsustainable fishing and tourism. Overall, focus on work with public and socio-economic issues during implementation of MPAs, and planning using goals, objectives and iterative evaluation with monitoring would be beneficial. We hope our findings can contribute to more effective planning and management of Sri Lankan MPAs. |