Sri Lanka & Thailand slapped on biodiversity day

Dr Sum­ith Pil­ap­itiya was tack­ling over-vis­it­a­tion and its con­sequences on biod­iversity at an event to mark the Inter­na­tion­al Day for Bio­lo­gic­al Diversity in Colombo, May 22. Accord­ing to Kumudini Het­tiarach­chi, report­ing for Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times, “every­one else was there, except the tour­ism officials”.

Explain­ing that no form­al stud­ies have been done on wheth­er over-vis­it­a­tion has had adverse impacts, Dr Pil­ap­itiya poin­ted out that road kills had increased with­in the Yala NP, that there is har­ass­ment of wild­life, and vis­it­ors are feed­ing wild anim­als and caus­ing beha­vi­our­al changes in them. Fur­ther­more he cited anec­dot­al evid­ence of a decline in anim­al populations.

Dr Pil­ap­itiya was crit­ic­al of the government’s over-emphas­is on tour­ism revenue.

The former DG who resigned due to alleged polit­ic­al inter­fer­ence poin­ted to “con­tin­ued polit­ic­al inter­fer­ence” at the DWC. He said the DWC’s inter­pret­a­tion ser­vices were poor; that it faced a dearth of staff, guides, facil­it­ies, and patrol vehicles; it was unable to get gov­ern­ment approv­al for more recruit­ment; and lacked the author­ity to enforce NP rules and pen­al­ise violators.

Dr Pil­ap­itiya was adam­ant that DWC offi­cials should be empowered to enforce reg­u­la­tions without fear of a polit­ic­al back­lash. “For this, the respons­ib­il­ity clearly lies with the highest-level polit­ic­al author­it­ies and the Wild­life Min­is­ter,” he said.

Accord­ing the Yala web­site, the NP lies in Sri Lanka’s south­east. It was des­ig­nated a wild­life sanc­tu­ary in 1900 and a nation­al park in 1938 and is home to 44 vari­et­ies of mam­mal and 215 bird spe­cies. Under Brit­ish rule it was a hunt­ing ground yet it claims to hold the world’s biggest con­cen­tra­tion of leopards.

Dr Sum­ith Pil­ap­itiya, former DG of Sri Lanka’s Depart­ment of Wild­life Con­ser­va­tion & Maeve Night­in­gale of Inter­na­tion­al Uni­on for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature

At the same biod­iversity day event, Maeve Night­in­gale of the Inter­na­tion­al Uni­on for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN) dis­cussed the mar­ine and coastal tour­ism poten­tial for Sri Lanka and iden­ti­fied key factors to sus­tain­ably man­aging coastal tourism:

• Capa­city development
• Con­sid­er­a­tion of a com­plex range of sub-nation­al, nation­al and transna­tion­al relationships
• Reg­u­lat­ory frameworks
• Com­munity involve­ment, trust, accept­ance and support
• Pay­ment for Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices (PES) – com­pens­at­ing for loss of earn­ings, pro­tect­ing and restor­ing hab­it­ats and con­serving endangered species
• Sus­tain­able fin­an­cing – entrance fees, fund-rais­ing and private sec­tor partnerships
• Coordin­a­tion among multi-sec­tor­al and multi-faceted agencies
• Col­lab­or­a­tion of all stakeholders

Night­in­gale also cited the example of the island of Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thai­l­and as a case study in what not to do. She lis­ted Koh Tao’s prob­lems: Short­age of fresh­wa­ter and ground­wa­ter; inad­equate sol­id waste col­lec­tion and dis­pos­al; untreated waste-water dis­pos­al from com­munit­ies and tour­ist facil­it­ies; rap­id unplanned devel­op­ment; con­struc­tion and encroach­ment on beach and ter­restri­al forest (while there is build­ing legis­la­tion and envir­on­ment­al impact assess­ment require­ments, there is no con­sist­ent enforce­ment); tour­ist num­bers exceed­ing the island’s car­ry­ing capa­city; the uneven dis­tri­bu­tion of bene­fits from tour­ism; and the high cost of liv­ing for Koh Tao locals.

The list went on: High energy demands and depend­ency on dies­el-fuelled gen­er­at­ors; loc­al­ised oil-spills from fish­ing and tour­ism boats; reef degrad­a­tion; decline in fish­er­ies resources; and a 1995 devel­op­ment plan that was not well-adopted.

Source: Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times. Fea­tured image: Yala leo­pard by Amila Ten­nakoon.