Title: Why human development model is going wrong and what has to be done for a paradigm shift - By C.P. Gunasena Introduction This document is prepared without having any intention to downgrade present values and norms of ourselves live today experiencing the present technological advancement and the beauty of the planet. This article has no nay bias towards any religion, philosophical thinking or any doctrine. First let us look at the human philosophical thinking process and its development. Philosophy has developed to explain things experienced by man with respect to the nature surround him. Basically, It could be categorized in to two major streams namely, god given philosophy which explain how to live harmony with the nature and manmade Philosophy. Manmade philosophy could be categorized in to another two sub categories. First category developed to explain things that are unexplainable to him. Most of the religious thinking comes under this category. Second category was developed to explain ways and means of sharing natural resources with other colleges. Most of the political theories and philosophies comes under this category. Today we are gradually realizing that manmade philosophical thinking has its own shortcomings and course present environmental crisis. Even religious misinterpretations aggravate the situation leading to even wars. Let us look at God given philosophy first Hinduism God has created everything and he himself given ways and means to live meaningfully and happily within this world and pathway to reach him at the end of the life. If we do not obey him, has given the consequences also. Example: “Do not cut trees, because they remove pollution.” (Rig Veda, 6:48:17), “Do not disturb the sky and do not pollute the atmosphere.” (Yajur Veda,5:43), Destruction of forests is taken as destruction of the state, and reforestation an act of rebuilding the state and advancing its welfare. Protection of animals is considered a sacred duty. (Charak Sanhita) Crestinism God has created everything and he himself given ways and means to live meaningfully and happily within this world and pathway to reach him at the end of the life. If we do not obey him, has given the consequences also. Example : Psalm 96:10-13. The Lord reigns... Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad, let the seas resound and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy, they will sing before the Lord for He comes, He comes to judge the earth. Isaiah 43:20-21. The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen.
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Title: Why human development model is going wrong and what has to be done for a paradigm
shift - By C.P. Gunasena
Introduction This document is prepared without having any intention to downgrade present values and norms
of ourselves live today experiencing the present technological advancement and the beauty of the
planet. This article has no nay bias towards any religion, philosophical thinking or any doctrine.
First let us look at the human philosophical thinking process and its development. Philosophy has
developed to explain things experienced by man with respect to the nature surround him. Basically,
It could be categorized in to two major streams namely, god given philosophy which explain how
to live harmony with the nature and manmade Philosophy. Manmade philosophy could be
categorized in to another two sub categories. First category developed to explain things that are
unexplainable to him. Most of the religious thinking comes under this category. Second category
was developed to explain ways and means of sharing natural resources with other colleges. Most
of the political theories and philosophies comes under this category. Today we are gradually
realizing that manmade philosophical thinking has its own shortcomings and course present
environmental crisis. Even religious misinterpretations aggravate the situation leading to even
wars.
Let us look at God given philosophy first
Hinduism
God has created everything and he himself given ways and means to live meaningfully and happily
within this world and pathway to reach him at the end of the life. If we do not obey him, has given
the consequences also.
Example: “Do not cut trees, because they remove pollution.” (Rig Veda, 6:48:17), “Do not disturb
the sky and do not pollute the atmosphere.” (Yajur Veda,5:43), Destruction of forests is taken as
destruction of the state, and reforestation an act of rebuilding the state and advancing its welfare.
Protection of animals is considered a sacred duty. (Charak Sanhita)
Crestinism
God has created everything and he himself given ways and means to live meaningfully and happily
within this world and pathway to reach him at the end of the life. If we do not obey him, has given
the consequences also.
Example : Psalm 96:10-13. The Lord reigns... Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad, let
the seas resound and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the
trees of the forest will sing for joy, they will sing before the Lord for He comes, He comes to judge
the earth. Isaiah 43:20-21. The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide
water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen.
Islamism
God has created everything and he himself given ways and means to live meaningfully and happily
within this world and pathway to reach him at the end of the life. If we do not obey him, has given
the consequences also.
Example:
The Qur’an also recognizes that people take pleasure in experiencing variety, particularly in their
food, while again, warning against being wasteful: It is He Who has brought into being gardens,
the cultivated and the wild, and date-palms, and fields with produce of all kinds, and olives and
pomegranates, similar (in kind) and variegated. Eat of their fruit in season, but give (the poor) their
due on harvest day. And do not waste, for God does not love the wasteful.(6:141)
Curiosity and ego of the man In early days of his evolution, man might started to worship Lightning, thunder, large trees, and
rocks to get rid of his sufferings and had a belief something supernatural to him. But after he
invented the fire and tools, things has changed. Then he tied to question about god philosophy. For
that they developed philosophical thinking to ease their own thinking and work.
Manmade Philosophy As I discussed earlier his philosophical thinking could be categorized in to two sub streams.
Philosophical thinking to explain which are unexplainable to him and philosophical thinking to
explain ways and means of sharing natural resources with other colleges.
Things that are unexplainable With the advancement of the technological knowhow and thinking patterns, man wanted to define
god, recognize him, and to see him. Earlier he worship trees and rocks but now he need to cut and
flat rocks and mountains for his own good. Then he developed god as different personalities like
him but with some super natural features. To understand these concepts of his own creations he
developed a philosophical thinking named as Metaphysical thinking.
Further to this he wanted to fight with his colleges to get more natural resources to his own group
as a group leader. Then he create a god with arms and weapons who help them to conquer their
own colleges and developed ethics for that. He rewrote the philosophy which was given by god to
him giving opportunity to kill his own colleges for his own benefit.
Sharing natural resources with other colleges From slavery, to imperialism, to capitalism to communism to socialism to democracy, man has
developed various philosophical thinking to share resources and manage it sustainably. In order to
discuss these issues man has developed other branches of philosophy. Epistemological thinking
was developed to study about vast knowledge gathered by his own colleges form various parts of
the world where he was able to spread his own community with in the planet.
Furthermore, he developed the axiological thinking to explain the way and means of sharing
resources identified as politics, developed ethics to follow to govern his followers, added aesthetic
values when using those natural resources.
Now he is working his own philosophies without considering the god asked to do for his own
survival. He developed scientific method of understanding to explain the natural phenomena
happening around him. According to the god philosophy life is created on this planet and he was
not satisfied with it and developed evolution theory to explain how life was evolved in this planet.
But he is still trying to figure out what is reality behind this. He is investigating whether life has
arrived from outer space and trying to communicate with outer space to find any other life forms.
Catastrophe He was able to increase the life span and was able to live more comfortably and healthy. After
conquering the outer space he came to know that it is mightier than he thought. Then he invented
the latest highest speed which is greater than light. In future he will develop space ships to travel
outer space with this speed and another technological revolution will happened.
With all these technological advancement and the knowledge in hand, he is now experiencing the
consequences of the so called scientific development. Nature is trying to regain balance which is
lost due to anthropogenic activities. Man identifies this as a crisis situation and trying to find
solutions. Now day by day he is realizing the course of this crisis situation where manmade
philosophy has no solution to rebalance it.
New Philosophical thinking Now he is trying to develop new philosophical thinking to address to this crisis situation. He
develops new protocols to act globally as a one community to save the planet. It is very funny to
say that protocol has given by the god earlier and he is trying to rewrite it again with his own
words. Now he is going as a common man and trying to share natural resource as a global citizen
which has been asked by the god from him very much earlier prior to this catastrophe.
God given and Manmade religions Hinduism, Crestinism and Islamism have god given philosophical thinking. Buddhism, Jainism,
Taoism, etc. are manmade religions. Except Buddhism, other religions explain how to live
harmony with the environment and achieve higher spiritual states other than Nirvana.
Endless suffering God has asked to live as what he said and come to him where you can get the eternal life. What I
feel about this eternal life is that if there is any life form in that eternal state, that should not be
made up of body like ours or materials like ours. Because, we are getting older day by day, and
with time getting sick and our body confirmation is degenerating where god has not given any
solution to this problem.
Buddhism and man Buddhism is a manmade philosophy where Load Buddha has born as a man. He has developed his
own path to somewhere identify him as Nirvana where anybody could achieve it by Skanda
Prarinirvan. In this situation man can get rid of any form of physical body after death. Then you
will be able to eliminate all kind of sufferings due to degeneration of physical body and fluctuations
of mental status. Furthermore, he has explained the way of living harmony with the environment.
Example: In Karaniya metta sutra, Buddha has preached to extend our compassion to all living
beings both born and unborn. It is as follows. “Whatever breathing creatures here may be, No
matter whether they are frail or firm, Or middle-sized, or be they short or small, Or whether they
are dwelling far or near, Existing or yet seeking exist, May beings all be of a blissful heart. "
Now it is clear, that human development model is no longer valid with respect to the global
catastrophe we experience today.
Human development model and its consequences Having said that let us see what we are doing for our day to day living and how we define quality
of life and its consequences.
Human habitat and its incompatibilities I would like to first discuss about the human habitat and how we use it today. We have started so called
development in early stages of human civilization as a set of activities at micro scale. Now development is
at macro scale and impacts are also at the same scale. Today we are finding ways and means to improve
the resilience of our global eco systems which has been disturbed since where development started.
We have two options for this. We could go for micro scale or for macro scale interventions. Before we
think of policies strategies, plans and programs, let us look at the way we interact with the natural eco
systems and how we consume goods and services provided by these natural eco systems.
We talk about improvements of livelihood of mankind and our habitat in this beautiful living drop of the
universe. We are very keen on habitats of other living beings and health of eco systems. But we do not pay
enough attention to our own habitats. Simple comparison shows this contrasting issue. Let us take honey
bee as an example with respect to the basic needs of a living being namely, food, shelter and medicine.
Honey bees, collects food from the environment and they do not add chemicals or fertilizers, to increase
the flower yield, do not use genetic engineering principles to increase the honey yield. Instead they produce
nectar, which is a universal medicine and a healthy food for them and others who need. Habitant of a honey
bee could be easily defined. Within that environmental limits they live collectively and happily. They do
not have individual food supplies and produce food collectively.
Individual and collective destruction procedures adopted for the human production
process In contrast human habitat and its environmental limits cannot define precisely. Simply it can be defined as
places where we live. Are these places environment friendly? Are we using our habitats as a source of food
or place for shelter?
Individual destruction This could be one of the ridicules things one could observed in this beautiful planet. We clear the natural
forest cover and build permanent control structures to keep away from the nature and grow inedible,
invasive plant species considering only the beauty of it within the vicinity and we call it as homes and
gardens. This could be identified as individual or family level destruction of the nature.
Collective destruction We allow somebody else to produce food for us and we buy foods from those producers. Producers use
heavy machinery to do this and increase the carbon foot print. They ignore the consequence of having mono
cropping and the destruction of bio diversity. This could be identified as the collective destruction
performed by a one living being for their existence.
Agriculture and consequences Soil is disturbed seasonally and it is not allowed form naturally. Soil is no longer a living being, we need
to add fertilizer to get the desired so called economical yield. Varietal selection and acclimatization leads
to a situation where plants lost their natural vigor cannot survive without our fertilizers. Man use chemicals
to control other living beings identified as pests with increment of population density and we identify this
process as AGRICULTUR. These chemicals pollute surface and ground water resources and we identify
these as ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS. We clear the natural forests in highlands for our habitats and
agricultural purposes and we complain about CLIMATE CHANGE, diminishing of water resources and
pollution of ground water.
Research and Development The funniest thing is that we developed methods and procedures to study about these problems and
identified as RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. We justify our results using statistical procedures by
identifying unexplainable natural variation (under rich bio diversity) as experimental errors and we
minimize this error by ignoring it using statistical models. We develop confidence intervals and justify our
results and we ignore the impacts of outliers as experimental errors. We do not wanted to study the nature
of these experimental errors and we forget and go ahead with our results with limited accuracies and now
experiencing the global catastrophe.
We develop equipment to measure air quality but we are unable to measure the medicinal properties added
by the plants to the air and how we get natural medicinal breathing, but we practice Yoga breathing without
even looking at what ancient Gurus or “Rishies” told us not to do and how to live harmony with the nature.
Similarly we have equipment to measure water quality and still we do not know what medicinal properties
are added by roots of thousands of plant species to water in streams in virgin forests. We bottle this water
and sell as mineral water.
Food and consequences Food becomes an industry. Since everybody need foods producers get the support of scientists to increase
the food production and scientists develop new high yielding verities by various technologies namely,
varietal selection, breeding, and they alter and narrow down the natural genetic variability of our eco
systems. Therefore, we lose natural nutrient profile and we buy vitamin supplements. We consume more
calories than required and receive non communicable diseases as a natural gift and go for synthetic
medicines.
Food, medicine and bio diversity We have hundreds of native medicinal plant verities, but we do not grow them at our home gardens or
identified as human habitats. If we could grow these medicinal plant verities in our home gardens we can
increase the bio diversity and the natural nutrient profile we receive. If one could make a glass of fresh juice
by getting one leaf from each of these plant verities could access the full scale of natural nutrient profile
including anti-oxidants, volatile vitamins, required as day to day medicinal requirements as well. But we
do not do this and go for synthetic medicine or traditional medicine when we get ailments due to lack of
appropriate micro nutrient balance.
Food and energy We cook our vegetable curries for more than twenty minutes and we talk about the volatile vitamins, anti-
oxidants and energy saving principles. We suffer nutritional deficiencies and go for artificial vitamin
supplements. We develop energy saving cook stoves and try to reduce the fuel input for cooking, but
ignoring the loss of nutrients due to overheating.
Food and gut microbial population in humans Due to alteration of genetic composition of plants, cooking procedures, food processing technologies, we
narrowed down the diversity of gut microbial population and lost our natural digestive capabilities to digest
raw foods. Hence we lost natural macro and micro nutrients, antioxidants, volatile vitamin compounds we
receive from raw foods. Fast food industry developed and non-communicable illnesses spread among us.
Natural production process ( Eg. Bee Honey) vs Human production process (Eg. Tomato souse)
Honey bee and honey production Honey bees get nectar from flowers belong to hundreds of species and lots of nutrients are added. Bee
honey is a universal medicine. Humans cannot produce it artificially. Production process helps to improve
the bio diversity and product quality has a cyclical dependency on bio diversity.
Example: Human production system for tomato Genetically engineered verities cultivated as mono crops considering only the quality of sweetness from
one species. Production process reduces the bio diversity, increase pest and disease problems, and heavily
depends on agro chemicals. Mono cropping reduces the ability to accesses nutrients from different species.
Bees are totally depend on bio diversity to get their foods and humans narrow down the bio diversity for
their foods and loose diverse natural nutrient profile. They suffer malnutrition and get artificial vitamin
supplements and treat with synthetic medicines for ailments. Hence, collectively experience climatic
change and global warming.
Philosophy and education gone wrong In order to control this whole chaos we develop administration and political ideologies, philosophies, and
theories to share the resources among countries and within countries and drag the same human development
model along the time line. We modified teachings of our religious teachers and did what we need
considering only the comfort of our selves ignoring the nature. But we just chant those teachings to get
blessings from the god. We teach these things to our younger generation and we identify it as education.
Real vicious cycle We must understand that we practice individual and collective environmental destruction. This is the real
viscous cycle which should be addressed in totally different philosophical platform.
Micro scale production systems and macro scale value addition systems Production and value addition could be started at micro scale as well as macro scale interventions. Micro
scale intervention is very clear and that is we have to re define the human habitat with respect to the goods
and services we receive from it. Macro scale is to link the micro scale primary production system with
macro scale value addition without going for mass scale mono cropping followed by necessary micro and
macro scale technological interventions. In order to do this we have to change the present production
system, consumer behavior and the livelihood of our people.
Stage 2
Title: Human Development Model – Paradigm shift by linking micro scale production and macro scale
value addition
By C.P. Gunasena
Background
Since the early stages of human development we have achieved unbelievable wonders in all sectors of
development spending renewable and nonrenewable natural resources. We are now capable of exploiting
these resources with latest technological advancements and nature is trying to gain the lost ecological
resilience in many ways. Hence, we experience the global environmental catastrophe.
Evolving and awakening human conscious become aware of the mismatch of the way we use goods and
services provided by the natural ecosystems and struggling to find ways and means to reestablish a better
negotiation with the nature. With this background we understand that human development must include
the social and environmental considerations to become sustainable. Chemistry of sustainability is mainly
depend on eco conscious technological approaches and a human society with advanced spiritual
development to avoid the today’s consumerism which leads to unhealthy livelihood and ecosystems.
Presently, we humans use over forty percent of the primary production of the lands globally. More than
sixty percent of the global population is under or over the poverty line and we expect doubling the
population in the middle of the century.
In order to cater to this burning issues, we need to improve the land productivity as well as the livelihood
of the people. As we discussed earlier, we must avoid the individual or family level destruction and
collective destruction we practicing today for our existence. Therefore, paradigm shift must address these
main destructive forces. This concept paper discusses several approaches to find a pathway to shift the
existing human development model in to a more sustainable and eco conscious paradigm.
Objectives
To prepare a hand book of all edible fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants of Sri Lanka with their nutritive
values, cooking preparations, and medicinal aspects.
To develop a policy addressing the need of incorporating basics of Yoga and Ayurvedic lifestyle in to school
curriculum
To develop a policy to get the fullest corporation of school community to increase the gross domestic
production and encourage people to avoid individual or family level destruction by encouraging them to
grow fruits, vegetable and medicinal plants in their home gardens monitored as an academic activity.
To develop a new land policy where land owners could share their underutilized lands with land less
people for production purpose and share the produce in trustworthy manner and link micro scale
production systems with macro scale value addition production systems to avoid mono cropping
Methodology
In order to achieve above objectives following methodologies could be adopted.
Preparation of hand book of fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants is not very easy task where lots of
research and development work is needed. Identification of all edible fruits, vegetable and medicinal plant
varieties have to be carry out with the help of the all faculties of Ayurveda, Ayurveda department, and
traditional village Ayurveda doctors and senior citations in Sri Lanka. Initially this could be conducted as
a survey through the “Samurdi Niyamaka” or “Grama Niladari” network under the supervision of the
development offices in AGA offices in Sri Lanka. Collected information from “Grama Niladari” divisions or
from “Samurdi Niyamaka” divisions could be further processed by AGA divisional level and finally district
level to avoid the information redundancy. Finally district level information could be processed to
formulate the name list of all edible fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants in Sri Lanka.
Survey should get the information related to locations where planting materials available and necessary
technology to cultivate these plants. Island wide necessaries have to be put up to distribute the planting
materials to all home gardens in Sri Lanka to increase the bio diversity in home gardens.
Details of the survey results could be handed over to the university system for further processing and
analysis. Laboratory analytical work could be achieved by very easily with university research community.
Annually, most of the agricultural universities produce student thesis to full fill their graduation.
Nutritional profile analysis could be carried out as student research components in all agricultural
universities with pre-determined experimental standards approved by the Sri Lanka standards to
eliminate the procedural errors.
Compiling information could be easily performed by each and every student by entering their results in to
a web based database. This will facilitate the publication of the book and book could be published by the
governmental press.
Second objective is to popularize Yoga and Ayurveda lifestyle among the school community. This could be
easily achieved through the ministry of education and the ministry of traditional medicine. This will
eliminate the overconsumption of calories and could avoid the non-communicable diseases from the
society within ten years providing additional savings from the health sector to the government. Students
must trained to identify the importance of the fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants for their day to day
requirements as foods, medicines etc. at home garden level highlighting the ancient proverb “Prevention
is better than cure”
Third objective is formulated to minimize the individual or family level destruction process by getting the
contribution of school community to improve the gross domestic production of the country. This has to
be conducted as an academic exercises which has to be evaluated and marks should be given to students
based on their contribution.
Class room based productively measurements have to be carryout as an academic activity. Each student
must be considered as one producer. Land availability for the cultivation at home garden level must be
estimated by summing all available land extent in individual basis. Students or the producers must guide
according to the hand book to cultivate large number of fruits, vegetables and medicinal plant varieties
as much as possible to increase the plant diversity of the home garden. In this case they have to convert
their garden fence in to an edible fence with potential plant varieties. Cultivation has to be monitored
with the assistance of Agricultural Instructors of the Department of Agriculture. All must be grown
organically. Student having higher number of plants could be graded as “A” grade garden. They have to
keep records of how they use these plants for their day to day requirements namely, as foods, drinks, or
medicinal purposes. This will enhance their knowledge about plant diversity and how they could depend
on the diversity to full fill their day to day requirements. Consumption of large number of fruits, vegetables
and medicinal plant varieties will increase their access to natural nutrient profile and help them to keep
away from fast foods and over consumption of excessive calories and eliminate the vulnerability to non-
communicable diseases, over weight etc.
Productivity charts must be prepared for each class where, planting dates, harvesting dates could be
displayed for production planning. They must be able to consider the class room as a large family unit and
individual food requirement must be calculated for each family member. Some students or producers may
do not have enough land parcel to cultivate and family members of these students must be fed by others
who have enough land. A land index could be developed by dividing the land area of individual student by
the total class room land area to grade students based on land availability. Another land index could be
developed to estimate the cultivated land area with respect to the individual land availability. This will
indicate the land utilization for the production. This will help them to understand how much they use and
how much they do not use. At the same time they will understand the number of family members they
could feed if they grow these land extent.
Similar exercise could be carryout for the entire school with a properly managed database using
computers. Friday one hour after school could be used to share individual production with others.
Individual producers could bring their harvest each Friday and harvest could be kept at one place in the
school to be carried out by needy students for their families free of charge. This will help them to save
some amount of money spending for foods. This kind of savings at national level will have great influence
in development sustainability in many ways. This will enhance the bio diversity at national level, use of
large number of fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants will increase the macro and micro nutrient
consumption leading to healthy nation.
Education then will become not only a service provided by governments but a diverse production system
of the country. Students those who follow these instructions will understand the nature in a productive
way and learn to share their resources efficiently and collectively.
Forth objective facilitates the land owners to share their lands in a trustworthy manner with land less
people for production purpose. A policy has to be developed and implement via agricultural instructors
of the department of agriculture. This policy should facilitate land owners those who have fertile but
unproductive lands to share with land less people only for the production purpose. Memorandum of
Understanding must be signed between both parties to begin activities and it must be signed front of a
lawyer. In this MOU it must be clearly stated that lands are only shared for cultivation and not for any
permanent or temporary settlements. Furthermore, MOU could be canceled ant any point of time by
compensating the cultivation.
Those who cultivate under this policy could be identified as micro scale producers, must agree to cultivate
organically and these producers must maintain a minimum level of bio diversity with prescribed plant
varieties as a base plantation which will again increase the national level bio diversity with traditional and
uncommon fruits, vegetables and medicinal plant varieties.
Their products must be certified by the department of agriculture. Size of the one land parcel must not
exceed one acre which could be the ideal land parcel to be cultivated under organic practices and
principles.
Linking micro scale production systems with macro scale value addition systems
Micro scale production units must be linked with macro scale producers to carry out value addition and
further processing. Any Middle man, corporative societies, farmer organizations, other community based
organizations, and any type of social network could be used as harvest collecting and distribution agency.
Growers must agree to supply the harvest with desired quality parameters to the local collecting centers
and these centers have the responsibility to deliver good quality raw materials to the ultimate macro scale
producer. Value addition or further processing could be carry out with organically grown with less
postharvest losses. With this micro scale production system necessary of mono cropping in large
farmlands could be minimized. Even exporting organically grown products could be started with this out
grower production system. Furthermore, these products could be sell at governmental sale outlets
namely, “Sathosa”. Products could be delivered to other canteens restaurants guest houses run under
government departments and private organization.
Case studies
Three case studies have been discussed to establish productive linkages between micro scale producers
and macro scale value additions.
Title: Ecotourism as a micro scale intervention mechanism to empower rural women and improve
ecosystem resilience
By C.P. Gunasena and Palitha Gurusinghe
1 Background
World tourism arrivals have grown by 23% and are forecast to double by 2020. Ecotourism is an emerging
human interaction with the global ecosystems with an Eco concusses approach. Ecotourism could be
defined as a form of tourism involving visiting fragile, pristine, and relatively undisturbed natural areas,
intended as a low-impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial (mass) tourism. Its
purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide funds for ecological conservation, to directly benefit
the economic development and political empowerment of local communities, or to foster respect for
different cultures and for human rights. Since the 1980s ecotourism has been considered a critical
endeavor by environmentalists, so that future generations may experience destinations relatively
untouched by human intervention.
Ecotourism is defined and principles are discussed by The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) in 1990.
According to that, ecotourism is defined as a Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the
environment and improves the well-being of local people.
1.1 Characteristics of ecotourism
Conservation of biological diversity and cultural diversity through ecosystem protection
Promotion of sustainable use of biodiversity, by providing jobs to local populations
Sharing of socio-economic benefits with local communities and indigenous peoples by having their
informed consent and participation in the management of ecotourism enterprises
Tour to unspoiled natural resources, concerning minimal impact on the environment
Minimization of tourism's own environmental impact
Affordability and lack of waste in the form of luxury
Local culture, flora and fauna being the main attractions
Local people benefit from this form of tourism economically, often more than mass tourism
1.2 Code of conduct established by the TIES for members
"We agree that ecotourism is responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and
improves the well-being of local people, and further agree that we will undertake to adhere to the
principles of ecotourism as outlined below: - Minimize impact - Build an environmental and cultural
awareness and respect - Provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts - Provide direct benefits
for conservation - Provide financial benefits and empowerment for local people - Raise sensitivity to host
countries' political, environmental, and social climate"
The Global Ecotourism Conference 2007, held in Oslo, Norway, from 14-16 May, summarize some of the
challenges faced by the ecotourism as an emerging industry and made several valuable comments to
governments, the private sector, NGOs, international agencies and local and Indigenous communities.
During the conference clearly identified that, the consequences of the human impacts on global natural
resources. Climate change has increasingly become a major threat affecting the very resources on which
ecotourism depends namely, natural ecosystems, and local and Indigenous communities around the
world.
Awareness about the current degradation triggers the necessity of positive intervention through current
and future ecotourism operations heading for combating global climate change. In order to have a
sustainable and greener future for the tourist industry, stakeholders must aware about the socio-
ecosystems and their interactions. In general socio-ecological systems could be defined as a set of critical
resources (natural, socioeconomic, and cultural) whose flows and uses are regulated by a combination of
ecological and social systems.
2. Ecosystems and their components
An ecosystem could be defined as a system where biological communities lives along with non-living
environment having ecological processes such as physical, biological chemical geological, geochemical etc.
There are many examples of ecosystems such as - a pond, a forest, an estuary, a grassland etc. The
boundaries of ecosystems are not fixed in any objective way, although sometimes they seem obvious, as
with the shoreline of a small pond.
2.1 Composition of an average ecosystem
Ecosystem is composed of biotic and abiotic factors. Biotic factors include primary producers, herbivores,
carnivores, omnivores and detritivores while the abiotic factors includes sunlight, temperature, and
precipitation, water or moisture and soil or water chemistry.
2.3 Ecosystem Processes
The Water Cycle, mineral cycle, plant and animal succession and the energy flow, could be identified as
major ecosystem processes. Stakeholders of the ecotourism industry must have basic knowledge about
these processes for better intervention to improve the ecosystem resilience.
The Water Cycle: it is cyclic movement of water from earth to atmosphere and then back to the earth
precipitation. The processes of precipitation, transpiration, evaporation, surface and subsurface runoff,
infiltration, percolation and ground water flow are incorporated in water cycle. The effectiveness of the
water cycle and its overall functioning are directly influenced by land management practices.
The Mineral Cycle: The mineral cycle describes the nutrients follows and their used and re-used by all
living organisms. Functionality of the mineral cycle depends on mineral oxidation, degradation of minerals
and organic matter in the soil by the solar energy, mechanical breakage, fire, and actions of wind and
water. The manner and rate at which nutrients are cycled play and important role for ecosystem
dynamism, which are directly influenced by land management practices. Soil is also considered as complex
bio geo chemical system where biological and mineral cycles are involved.
Plant and Animal Succession: Populations of plants and animals change continually in response to all sorts
of environmental pressures and ecosystems change accordingly. This phenomenon is identified as the
plant and animal succession.
Energy flow
Sun acts as the primary energy source in a terrestrial ecosystem and energy receiving from the sun is links
to carbon cycle where carbon is involved in all energy trapping, storage and transferring process. Energy
flow is also closely related to the other ecosystem processes such as water cycling, mineral cycling, and
succession. All four processes work together to create a healthy or unhealthy ecosystem and provide
goods and services to the mankind.
2.4 Goods and services provided by these ecological systems
Services provided by ecosystems could be identified as range of conditions and processes happening
within ecological systems with the assistance of living and nonliving resources. These services helps to
fulfill human life in a sustainable manner and regulate the production of ecosystem goods or the natural
products harvested or used by humans such as wild fruit and nuts, forage, timber, game, natural fibers,
medicines etc.
Ecosystem services have been categorized in a four ways namely, provisioning services which includes
vast range of food products derived from plants, animals and microbes as well as materials such as wood,
jute, hemp, silk, natural medicine, shells and flowers, and many other products derived from the
ecosystems. Fresh Water is an example of expressing linkages between provisioning and regulating
services.
Regulating services includes, air, water quality regulations, water quantity regulation (the timing and
magnitude of flooding, runoffs, and aquifer recharge, waste water regulation, pollination, pest and
diseases). These regulations could be strongly influenced by the changes in land cover such as conversion
of wetlands or replacement of forests with croplands or croplands with urban areas.
Cultural services could be identified as the nonmaterial benefits that people obtain from ecosystems
through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation and aesthetic experiences.
These systems are developed as knowledge systems within different cultures having different social
values. Many societies place high values on the maintenance of historically important landscapes. Cultural
services are tightly bound to the human values and behavior as well as to human institutions and patterns
of social, economy and political organization.
Supporting Services:
These are the services that are necessary for production of all other ecosystem services. They differ from
provisioning, regulating and cultural services in that their impacts on people are either indirect or occur
over a very long time whereas in other categories the changes are direct.
3.Resilience
Resilience could be defined as the interplay between disturbance and reorganization. This interplay is
formulated by hard or tangible aspects such as machines, materials, money, people and soft or intangible
aspects such as morale, policies, processes, structures of a given situation.
The main approach of the eco-system resilience could be identify as activities are happening in the face
of change in systems such as agricultural communities, watersheds, or cities, and moving to a more
desirable state. Ecological resilience or robustness could also be used in management of ecosystem
services. Such services include the provision of food, feed, fiber, fuel and fertilizer, natural landscaping for
hiking, bicycle riding, wild life habitats for safaris, wetland for bird watching, native cultural sites for
visiting etc. Other than these services, ecosystems provide plants for traditional medical treatments and
pharmaceutical drug development, mediate climate, remove toxic materials from environmental
reservoirs.
The resilience of social-ecological systems lost due to climate change, inappropriate land use (unplanned
agricultural activities, sand and gem mining, industrial wastes and effluents), negative human values
(unawareness of the importance of ecosystem services, dumping wastes on wetlands, landfills) and
policies (support excess use of agro chemicals, allow land clear in upstream areas), loss of biodiversity,
toxic pollution, subsidies that encourage unsustainable use of resources etc.
Capacity of natural ecological systems to cope with disturbance or the resilient capacity can be degraded
due to anthropogenic activities. There is a possibility of enhancing the resilient capacity of degraded
ecosystems. The key to resilience in social-ecological systems is diversity of its flora and fauna. Ecotourism
could play vital role in this context where selected sites and ecosystems could be improved with the
participation of stakeholders namely, local resource users, research scientists, community members with
traditional knowledge, government representatives, etc.
4. Agro-Ecosystems and livelihood of rural community
The agro-ecosystem can be defined as an ecosystem managed with the intention of producing,
distributing, and consuming food, fuel, and fiber. Its boundaries encompass the physical space dedicated
to production, as well as the resources, infrastructure, markets, institutions, and people that are
dedicated to bringing food to the plate, fiber to the factory, and fuel to the earth. The agro-ecosystem
operates simultaneously at multiple nested scales and hierarchies, from the field to the globe via home
gardening systems to complex farming systems.
4.1 Degradation of traditional agro ecological systems and rural livelihood
Globally, traditional agricultural systems are demand driven, largely depends on agro chemicals and
machine inputs. Authentic livelihoods of the rural people have changed drastically, where they tend to
get agricultural inputs as loans. At the end of the season they repay loans and live with marginal returns.
It is clearly identified that most of the males abuse their income due to drug addiction and smoking habits.
Agricultural community tends to grow few selected food crops for their consumption as well as for
commercial purposes leading to loss of bio diversity in rural ecosystems. Hundreds of traditional fruits and
vegetable verities are neglected and vanishing form the gene pool. This is the total nutrient profile
neglected by the rural community. They tend to consume, very few food items for their day to day living.
Hence they cultivate few selected planting materials narrowing down the bio diversity of ecosystems.
Most people tend to consume wheat flour and its products like bread; short eats etc. and they have
forgotten traditional drinks and refreshments and tend to use commercially available beverages having
high sugar content. Due to lack of proper cultivation and marketing urban people also depends on artificial
nutrient supplements.
They have lost their traditional value systems inherited form their ancestors namely, their self-sufficient
home gardening system, traditional medical treatment systems, ecosystems maintained around reservoir
networks with water purification systems, sediment control systems, and biological pest control systems,
spiritual beliefs systems, traditional yoga and recreational and self-defense systems etc. These trends
drive rural population in to health risks like non communicable diseases, malnutrition, poor growth,
increase infant mortality etc. Poverty leads exploitation of near by natural ecosystems at alarming rates.
Therefore, there is an ethical need for an intervention to increase the livelihoods of rural community and
ecosystem resilience at micro scale in home garden level and macro scale at associated ecosystems.
Ecotourism could be practiced as one of the intervention mechanisms to address these issues and improve
the livelihoods and ecological resilience in these areas.
4.2 Poverty elevation and ecotourism
Poverty alleviation via tourism has recognized in the millennium development goals as a critical industry
responsibility. Ecotourism which is an emerging industrial possibility is following the principles of
sustainability and applying in the travel and tourism sector shows promising results in rural community
empowerment and restoration of ecosystems. This approach helps the industry to become popular in
global investing community as a new business venture.
5. Planning interventions with ecotourism to improve the resilience of rural ecosystems and livelihood
Humans tend to clear natural forest and exploit other natural ecosystems for their livelihood
improvements namely, home studs, commercial agricultural and plantation purposes, destroying the
natural biological diversity. Traditionally, conservation practices tend to preserve existing species within
particular designated places, such as reserves and parks having serious limitations when considering the
biodiversity restoration in areas affected with anthropogenic activates.
5.1 Intervention mechanism
Interventions are intended either to maintain a system in a current desirable state or to move a system
away from a current undesirable state. Interventions can be categorized as reactive, active, or proactive
and can occur primarily at a local, regional, or global scale. Reactive interventions are attempts to maintain
a current ecosystem state or to halt a process thought to degrade ecosystem values. Active interventions
are positive steps taken to change ecosystem properties in a particular direction. Proactive interventions
are designed to limit the human drivers of processes that assault eco- systems. Ecotourism could play vital
role in these three interventions with appropriate policy and good governance.
It is increasingly recognized that local interventions have to be conducted within a broader landscape and
regional context, and that regional interventions may be required to address many issues such as
hydrologic imbalance, connectivity, and maintenance of key ecosystem services.
6. Challenges faced by the ecotourism as an emerging industry
Ecotourism is having challenges to develop and identify natural ecosystems for visiting, sites to get hands
on experience in authentic local living, observation of native cultural heritage, and development of
sustainable industries to market rural talents in arts and crafts with best management practice. More
governments have developed ecotourism strategies, but not all have been well integrated into
mainstream tourism and environmental policies, or supported by action.
Even though, number of ecotourism projects designed to enhance sustainable livelihoods and ecosystem
conservation, many remain economically fragile due to lack of adequate access to markets and market
oriented research and development activities.
6.1 Resent development in the ecotourism industry
In order to rectify these issues many countries developed their own national and regional ecotourism
associations and continue to establish links between governments, NGOs, businesses and citizens and
strengthening ecotourism in the global context. Globally there is a trend of developing innovative
approaches including active mobilization of Indigenous communities, women, and local professionals and
designers for a sustainable greener approach for the future of the ecotourism.
7. Sri Lanka Women Empowerment in Tourism/Ecotourism
In Sri Lanka, a good number of women are engaged in tourism businesses in diverse capacities ranging