By Sarah Hannan
Since the 1970s, there has been an enormous transformation of the southern and eastern seaboard, irrespective of the political regimes that came to power. These areas were also sites that were badly affected by the 2004 tsunami and are now facing the consequences of accelerated climate change in the recent years due to rapid infrastructure development and the expansion of the tourism trade after the end of the civil war in 2009.
The two provinces also house ecologically important national parks and protected areas. However, with the natural disasters and change in the coastal belt caused by projects such as expansion of irrigation schemes, port development projects, and the changes it set off in biodiversity in the region, new challenges have been presented to its residents.
These changes have had significant impacts on coastal environments, biodiversity and protected areas, local economies, and community relationships, creating new opportunities on the one hand and opening new vulnerabilities on the other.
A multidisciplinary research study was launched in 2020 by the French Embassy, through the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that is to be conducted in five coastal regions in Sri Lanka – Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara East, Hambantota East, and Galle – to gain a better understanding of the social and ecological changes taking place along the southern and eastern coasts of Sri Lanka.
International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) Executive Director Dr. Mario Gomez, who is the local co-ordinator for this research, speaking to The Sunday Morning, stated: “One of the many areas of development that we are looking at is improving the weaving industries that are present in the region – one led by men and the other by women – where we will try to understand the transformation that has occurred in the lives of these people over the 70 years.”
He added that there is special focus on the Eastern Province, as it hosts a multi-ethnic community which has aided the area’s transformation in terms of creating unique social, political, ethnic, and religious factors that have come together.
Project SEDRIC
Titled “Social-Ecological Dynamics in Rapid Economic Development: Infrastructure and Coastal Change in South-Eastern Sri Lanka” (SEDRIC), the research project will strive to generate evidence-based findings on the impact these changes have on coastal communities, livelihood opportunities, and the physical environment of the two regions.
The project will look at several subthemes: The impact of the changes on coastal erosion, on coastal biodiversity, and on conservation policies. The project will also seek to map areas vulnerable to land use, climate change, and coastal erosion through remote sensing. By mapping and tracking major developments since the 1970s in and around the south-eastern coast of the country, the study sets out to develop a better understanding of the links between economic developments, social transformation, land use and land cover change, nature conservation, tourism, and local livelihood.
According to Dr. Gomez, the project will train 10 mPhil students in terms of their research and supervise and encourage them to conduct their work. “For ICES, the participation in this project means it continues some of the work that is already done in the Eastern Province, for which it has released two studies looking at women’s labour force participation in the East.”
Objectives
Meanwhile, French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) Head of the Department of Ecology Raphael Mathevet explained that the main objective of project SEDRIC is to better understand all social and ecological changes that are taking place along the coast of Sri Lanka, targeting the southern and eastern region for which they have to:
A multidisciplinary research study was launched in 2020 by the French Embassy, through the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that is to be conducted in five coastal regions in Sri Lanka – Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara East, Hambantota East, and Galle – to gain a better understanding of the social and ecological changes taking place along the southern and eastern coasts of Sri Lanka.
International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) Executive Director Dr. Mario Gomez, who is the local co-ordinator for this research, speaking to The Sunday Morning, stated: “One of the many areas of development that we are looking at is improving the weaving industries that are present in the region – one led by men and the other by women – where we will try to understand the transformation that has occurred in the lives of these people over the 70 years.”
He added that there is special focus on the Eastern Province, as it hosts a multi-ethnic community which has aided the area’s transformation in terms of creating unique social, political, ethnic, and religious factors that have come together.
Project SEDRIC
Titled “Social-Ecological Dynamics in Rapid Economic Development: Infrastructure and Coastal Change in South-Eastern Sri Lanka” (SEDRIC), the research project will strive to generate evidence-based findings on the impact these changes have on coastal communities, livelihood opportunities, and the physical environment of the two regions.
The project will look at several subthemes: The impact of the changes on coastal erosion, on coastal biodiversity, and on conservation policies. The project will also seek to map areas vulnerable to land use, climate change, and coastal erosion through remote sensing. By mapping and tracking major developments since the 1970s in and around the south-eastern coast of the country, the study sets out to develop a better understanding of the links between economic developments, social transformation, land use and land cover change, nature conservation, tourism, and local livelihood.
According to Dr. Gomez, the project will train 10 mPhil students in terms of their research and supervise and encourage them to conduct their work. “For ICES, the participation in this project means it continues some of the work that is already done in the Eastern Province, for which it has released two studies looking at women’s labour force participation in the East.”
Objectives
Meanwhile, French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) Head of the Department of Ecology Raphael Mathevet explained that the main objective of project SEDRIC is to better understand all social and ecological changes that are taking place along the coast of Sri Lanka, targeting the southern and eastern region for which they have to:
- Establish a scientific monitoring system for the environmental changes taking place along coastal ecosystems and infrastructure development sites in order to understand the past, present, and future states of these environments, their biodiversity, and the impact on the storage of coastal blue carbon. This component will use the latest remote sensing techniques to map land cover and land use, as well as palynology approaches to better understand the historical evolution of the environment in the areas under study. This work will allow a mapping and assessment of coastal zone vulnerabilities to global changes including coastal erosion, and the impact of new infrastructure.
- Provide a multidisciplinary analysis of the key social, economic, and ecological issues in the areas under study and of the interactions between nature conservation, infrastructure development, and tourism policies. This part of the project will use analytical frameworks pertaining to political economy, ecology, and social geography to better understand the processes of exclusion and inclusion of local populations. It will also seek to understand the transformation of the informal economy and the local handicraft industry as part of the development dynamics at work.
- Organise a set of training in paleo-environment, remote sensing, biodiversity monitoring, and interdisciplinary research on the transformations that have occurred and their social-ecological consequences. The development of a mobile phone application should facilitate the identification of tree species in the threatened dry tropical forest of the eastern coast and should serve as a support for developing citizen sciences. Workshops for restitution and collective reflection will allow for exchanges throughout the project with local stakeholders, farmers, tourism operators, protected area managers, NGOs, and government departments.