Abstract:
Conservation decisions are always made giving emphasis to long
standing benefits and welfare of the whole society. But, some of the immediate adverse
effects such as income losses due to conservation programs have to be borne by rural
communities living in the vicinity of the forests. As experiences have shown, it is very
unlikely that a conservation program will achieve its objectives unless the impact of the
program on rural communities is assessed and alternative policy measures are taken to
alleviate these negative effects.
The objective of this study is to investigate the fanning systems of some
selected villages in the Knuckles region and make a preliminary assessment on how the
proposed conservation program is likely to affect the rural economy.
Data were collected by conducting a survey in three grama niladhari divisions,
namely, Meeraure, Narangamuwa and Ranamure. A farming system approach was
adopted to describe the economic activities. Total revenue and total money income
earned by farming, forest bound activities and off-farm activities were estimated.
Average percentage loss of income under different assumed degrees of protection was
assessed since no detailed conservation plan was proposed as yet.
The results reveal that farming systems of the area consist of two resource
bases, namely, village and forest Village based activities contribute 58.27 per cent of
the total revenue and forest based activities contribute 41.73 per cent, on average.
Among forest based activities, cardamom is the only activity which accounted for a
significant income loss if banned under a conservation program. It contributes to a
significant percentage of the total revenue as well as money income. Therefore, even
under the lowest degree of protection, 25.78 per cent of the total revenue is expected to
be lost.
Since cardamom is die highest income earning activity, banning this will have
serious implications on the economy. This study therefore, suggests investigating the
possible alternative methods of cultivating cardamom in systems such as agro-forestry
with minimum damage to the forest ecosystem. Further, it will be worthwhile to study
the current resource utilization within the village resources systems in order to find out
ways to improve the efficiency of resources utilization, so that the rural communities
will be able to compensate part of the lost income.
