Marine conservation with fisheries community at Kalpitiya Sri Lanka

Kalpitiya peninsula located in Gulf of Mannar which one side is sea and other side is Puttalam lagoon. It is biodiversity rich area including sea turtles and other marine mega fauna such as dolphins, whales & dugongs.... [ view full abstract ]

Kalpitiya peninsula located in Gulf of Mannar which one side is sea and other side is Puttalam lagoon. It is biodiversity rich area including sea turtles and other marine mega fauna such as dolphins, whales & dugongs. Moreover, various habitats such as coral reefs, seagrasses and also largest mangrove coverage in Sri Lanka. Bar reef home to 156 species of coral and 283 species of fish. Fishing is the major industry in the area. Foraging sea turtles often entangled causing damage for each entanglement for fishing nets. In response, some fishers either beat the turtles’ heads until they are rendered unconscious, or hack off the turtles’ body parts to make disentanglement easier. Fishermen are highly contributing to destruct marine mega fauna and almost all the coastal biodiversity in the area. So the aims and objective of the BCSL programmes to increase the education and awareness on coastal biodiversity & conservation, legislation and law enforcement among the coastal communities. Awareness programmes were conducted at schools and villages for the school kids and community members.

Several field activities such as beach cleaning and mangrove replanting were conducted with fisheries communities. Community members (both adult & schoolchildren) were actively participated for the above field activities and they were highly enthusiastic to do the field activities. Cotton bags were distributed to reduce ocean plastic pollution. We experienced that field activities are better than indoor awareness lectures for marine conservation. This abstract will be discussed progress of the programmes from 2017 to 2018.