Sri Lanka is highly prone to multiple natural hazards with increased frequency and intensity. These hazards include floods droughts, landslides, high winds, sea erosion, tsunami, dengue epidemic, human-elephant conflict etc. In addition to natural hazards, some parts of the country are still at the recovery stage, from 30 years of war that destroyed infrastructure, caused massive internal displacements, and which led to adverse socio-economic conditions. Along with the effect of global warming, community’s vulnerability to hazards has increased, particularly the most at-risk groups such as children, persons with disability and women-headed households in conflict-affected areas.

Sri Lanka’s high biodiversity includes a diverse array of ecosystems and species, and careful management of natural resources is required balancing development needs and ecosystem services.  Ecosystems in the country have been largely disturbed by natural and manmade disasters occurred in last three decades. High usage of armed weapons during the thirty year of war, Tsunami 2014, and continues cycle of floods, landslides and droughts since 2011 have been largely affected to ecosystems and its sustainability. This require appreciation of the ecosystem services, disaster risk reduction, minimizing harmful land use practices and in depth understanding by all on factors affecting the quality of air, soil and water resources.

Healthy ecosystems provide multiple development benefits, including livelihoods, health, food and water security – all of which can strengthen resilience to disasters. Well-managed ecosystems function as “natural” or “green” infrastructure that can directly reduce a community’s exposure and vulnerability to a range of hazards, such as flooding, storm surge, drought and landslides among others. Healthy ecosystems also increase people’s capacities to better cope with and recover from disaster events, such as floods or landslides. Understanding such linkages between healthy ecosystems and disaster risk reduction are critical in the Sri Lankan context where livelihoods of most of people are ecosystem-dependent and access to alternate sources of disaster recovery avenues are limited.

The most vulnerable people in many communities rely on ecosystems for their livelihoods and resilience. Working with local communities on sustainable ecosystem management contributes to effective disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation strategies, and at the same time helps achieve local and national development priorities.

If managed wisely, ecosystems can act as a buffer against hazards and reduce the impact of hazards, including loss of lives, assets, livelihoods and damage to critical infrastructure and basic services. However, the Eco-DRR concept is still lacking widespread practical application within the communities in Sri Lanka for disaster risk reduction. This is due to a number of reasons including limited awareness of Eco-DRR good practices and absence of technical knowledge.

The interventions were aimed to build youth skills and capacity to address the issues and gaps at the community level, and to increase efficiency and effectiveness of disaster responses. In parallel, youth-led micro-projects were implemented by these youth groups, with the objective of disaster risk reduction. In spite of the challenges the youth face for being perceived as being young, their interventions contributed to significant positive changes in the communities, particularly on reducing risks of the identified hazards, and strengthening community-based emergency response mechanisms.

Youth groups extensively involved in Disaster Risk Management activities and the interventions particularly targeted the major hazards such as floods, droughts and landslides. However, with the increased awareness and understanding, youth groups and the community identified the need for expanding the scope of their interventions that address a wider range of hazards. Therefore, for the purposes of this strategic initiative, this project will predominately focus on youth-led Eco-DRR.

Outcomes

• • Communities are well prepared for disaster response with ER actions led by youth
  • The community has functioning eco-system based youth-led DRR action plans and resilient eco-system.
  • Vulnerable families adapt disaster-resilient livelihood alternatives.
  • Relevant stakeholders are effectively engaged in the planning and execution of Eco DRR action plans

Key Interventions

As a key intervention of phase 1, a long-term Eco-DRR based plan was prepared for the identified eco-system(s), with the leadership of trained and capacitated youth. These Eco-DRR based action plans are now available for the development actors, including village-level community-based organizations, other non-governmental organizations, local governments, and relevant line ministries of the national government. to be referred and to align their interventions. There were several successes reported, where key activities of eco-DRR action plans prepared through the project support were incorporated into the annual planning process of government and other stakeholders, as expected.

During phase 2, it was proposed that youth groups and other community-based organizations linked with service providers and capacitated to continue necessary advocacy and resource mobilization efforts in the long-term, to cover relevant activities of the action plan.

This youth-led approach has proven success in disaster risk management interventions in the target areas with collaboration of  IUCN, Disaster Management Center, and village level DRM committees.

Ecosystem-based DRR interventions were identified as an opportunity and entry point for youth, to enhance their civic engagement. Youth groups are continuing their role as the key actors and change agents in the community and may expand their activities to the neighboring communities where it is relevant and feasible. This allows additional youth groups to join with existing trained and skilled groups, and to work together in a broader geographical area.

These interventions focus on the concepts of community-based disaster management (CBDRM) with a youth-led approach, where the capacity of community members; particularly youth, and vulnerable groups such as children, women, people with disabilities; are enhanced to better cope and avert disasters and to reduce the risk. Programs will be tailored for each community, to ensure that the intervention addresses the non-homogeneous nature of risks and challenges.

Key Achievements:

• 850 families living in ecosystems are made aware of the importance of protecting ecosystems and the role of community.
• 5000 Agave Americana plants and 200 beehive units were established covering a 4 km length bio fence established around the village as a barrier for entering elephants into the village.
• 280 home garden units were established in 6 villages with both 1000 perennial and bulk of cash crops.
• Established 6 composting and waste management units.
• 2000 forest plants were established in upper watersheds and catchment areas of minor lakes in villages.