Community dependency on sand dunes for household income: Evidence from two coastal villages in Pottuvil

Abstract

The eastern coast of Sri Lanka contains the longest stretch of sand dunes in the country. The Pottuvil sand dunes are a part of the sand dune series which extends from Pottuvil to Panama seashore. Sand dunes were excessively mined for commercial purposes in Pottuvil, both for sand and turtle egg poaching. The main purpose of this study was to determine the economic dependency of the community on the sand dunes.

Through a survey using structured questionnaires for personal interviews, data on coastal community dependence on the coastal resources and income gained were collected. A multi-stage random sampling method was used, and 45 people were selected from two coastal villages of Pottuvil. The income dependency level of the community was analyzed through a linear regression model (double Log model).

The average family size was 5 persons, with about 68.9% of the respondents involved in fishing for their livelihood. 57.8% of respondents had been educated above the secondary level. Around 84.5% of the families were recipients of Samurdhi benefits. The families earned an average of Rs.6,746.7 per month from fishing and coastal resources exploitation. The linear regression results indicated that there was a significant relationship between total income of households and income from exploiting coastal resources (sand mining and turtle egg poaching). Although 95.5% of respondents had good knowledge about the importance of the coastal resources and its’ conservation, only 20% had the view that these resources were deteriorating over time due to exploitation. Results also indicated that about 86.5% of the respondents shared an optimistic behaviour to adopt environment friendly attitudes towards coastal resource conservation.

Coastal community seemed to have a more positive attitude towards the coastal resources, but was ignorant of conservation issues or impact of their actions on the environment. Hence, there is an urgent need to create awareness among the community for adopting participatory conservation activities to sustain the coastal resources.