Story | 12 Jan, 2018
The conservation and livelihoods power of a community fund in Uganda
The Community Environment Conservation Fund (CECF) is a conservation benefits sharing model developed and implemented by IUCN to address immediate community livelihood needs through a credit scheme. This in turn motivates and empowers communities to responsibly utilise and manage natural…
Story | 08 Jan, 2018
Youths unite for sustainable tourism in Sri Lanka
Nishanthan Sobana and her husband are a young couple from Sri Lanka's Mannar District who finished school in the crippled economy of the war-torn Northern Province. Even with her Bachelor's degree in Business Management, Nishanthan initially found it challenging to find a permanent job with a…
Story | 06 Nov, 2017
Dompe Division Join Hands with the Kelani River Multi-Stakeholder Partnership
As part of the operationalizing of the Kelani River Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Approach (KRMP), IUCN partnered with Brandix Limited (www.brandix.lk) to promote Public-Private-Community Partnerships (PPCPs) to conserve the Kelani River Basin. The first…
Story | 20 Sep, 2017
The northern province of Sri Lanka has gone through some tough times. Between 1980 to 2009, a civil war left over 60,000 people dead, 20,000 missing and 300,000 without homes. The province suffered another setback in 2004 when the Indian ocean struck and displaced over 5000 families.
Story | 29 Aug, 2017
IUCN’s work on World Heritage benefits and ecosystem services to help sustainability action
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is undertaking pilot assessments of ecosystem services in two natural World Heritage sites in Uganda and Sri Lanka, as part of its Benefits of Natural World Heritage project. The aim is to test practical tools and methods which can be…
Story | 17 Aug, 2017
Health N’ Delft: Low-salt dried fish for the health conscious
On Delft, an island in the Palk Strait north of Sri Lanka, approximately 1,200 out of a population of 4,502 rely on fisheries for their livelihoods. As freezer facilities to store fish are not available in the island, fishermen are forced to sell their daily catch to buyers from the mainland,…
Story | 16 Aug, 2017
Kelani River Multi-Stakeholder Partnership (KRMP) – Another step ahead
On August 1, 2017 as part of the larger initiative of the Kelani River Multi-Stakeholder Partnership (KRMP), a workshop was conducted by the IUCN Sri Lanka Office with the support of the Homagama Divisional Secretariat to raise awareness and empower the community level representatives.
Story | 07 Aug, 2017
In Iranawila village in Puttalam, a district situated on the west coast of Sri Lanka, 90% of the population relies on fishing for their livelihoods. In the past decade, villagers have been cutting and selling mangroves trees for the construction of dwellings, for firewood and for making…
Story | 31 Jul, 2017
Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment to Chair the IUCN Sri Lanka National Committee
Established in 2000, the National Committee of IUCN Sri Lanka comprised of 12 members; Government and Non-Government agencies representing a cross section of the conservation and management agencies.
Story | 28 Jul, 2017
New IUCN training focuses on engaging business to safeguard international public goods
All over the world, businesses make use of natural capital. Companies therefore benefit from healthy ecosystems. But how can nature conservation organizations engage companies to contribute to the maintenance of ecosystem services? That question was central to the international business…