Browsing by Author "Puustinen, Henna"

Biodiversity conservation has several impacts to human livelihoods. Especially in the Global South rural people depend closely on the biodiversity and on diverse ecosystems and changes in the environment can have significant impacts on local livelihoods. Protected Areas have become one of the main global strategies in the aims to conserve the world's biodiversity and in securing human livelihoods. Besides nature conservation, Protected Areas are expected to create benefits to the surrounding communities. However, impacts from Protected Areas have proved out to be the opposite in many occasions. Establishment of Protected Areas has often restricted local people's access to natural resources and hence, caused changes in livelihoods. Other costs from conservation include for instance damages caused by the increased amount wildlife. The aim of this case study has been to research the impact of biodiversity conservation on local communities. The study focuses on examining the Protected Area impacts on local livelihoods in Welioya in southern Sri Lanka. The research data was collected in areas located near to the Protected Area border. The study was conducted using qualitative research practices and the methods included semi-structured interview, open conversation and observation. The target group consisted of local people and in addition, local actors were interviewed to get information related to the local forests and Protected Areas. Employing the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and concepts of boundaries and social equity this study tries to understand the relation of conservation and local livelihoods. Biodiversity conservation and the existence of Protected Areas has both positive and negative impacts to local people and their livelihoods in Welioya. The main benefit from the Protected Areas are gained through the preservation of ecosystem services. Local livelihoods highly rely on cultivation of rice and cultivation depends on the preservation on the forest ecosystem and area's water resources. Some local people also get benefits by collecting forests products such as firewood, fruits and medicinal plants from the forests. The study reveals that some human activities are practices illegally inside the Protected Areas. The most costs from the Protected Area are related to the restricted access to cultivation land and to forest resources. In addition, there is an obvious human-elephant conflict that features the study area. Even though Protected Areas create significant benefits to local livelihoods, the results of this case study indicate that the sustainability of local livelihoods appears to be unsure. Also, the presence of people in Protected Areas in Welioya is evident although almost all human activities inside the area have been prohibited. Consequently, local people are concerned about the preservation of forests. When considering the future of local livelihoods, deforestation and planned projects can have a remarkable influence on the forests and hence, on the local livelihoods. In order to reach the conservation goals in Welioya, management of the Protected Areas should be clarified, the role of different conservation actors specified and local people should be increasingly included in conservation management.