AGRO-ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN SRI LANKA POTENTIAL FOR MICRO LEVEL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY OPTIONS

Abstract

Neo-liberal market oriented policy measures have shown hot to be harmful to theagro-environmental management, at lease in the present situation in high and midcountry in Sri Lanka (Sornaratne, 1998). However, macroeconomic policies aloneare not adequate to address the land degradation problem in the upland regions.In this context, the other complementary economic and environmental policyinstruments are needed to combat micro-level land degradation-inducedenvironmental damages.

In this analysis, two environmental policy options, replacement of presentseedling tea lands in high and midland regions with Vegetatively Propagated (VP)tea and adoption of sloping agricultural Land Technology (SALT) are selected aspossible micro-level environmental policy options to mitigate the cost of landdegradation. In order to select the viability of environmental policy options, thecost-benefit analysis (CBA) method is employed as an analytical device. Thesepolicy options show considerable promise as viable micro level environmentalpolicy options to mitigate land degradation-induced agro-environmental damagesin the high and midland regions of Sri Lanka.