Project Brief International Fund for Agricultural Development Global Environment Facility Full Project – Participatory Coastal Zone Restoration and Sustainable Management in the Eastern Province of post-tsunami Sri Lanka GEFSEC ID 2753 Brief description: The Eastern Province of Sri Lanka bore the brunt of the damage caused when the Indian Ocean Tsunami struck the island in the morning of 26th December 2004. As well as causing the deaths of 14,345 people (46% of the national death toll), displacing over 220,000 people, and destroying most of the fishing industry, it also caused extensive damage to coastal ecosystems – with respect to area of occurrence 100% of coastal lagoons, 43% of mangroves, and 38% of sand dunes were either partially damaged or completely destroyed1. The value of these ecosystems in providing protection was apparent to all in that lives were saved and property protected where these ecosystems had not been degraded by poor management. However, in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, humanitarian considerations were given the highest priority to provide rescue, relief, and emergency support to the survivors. The reconstruction programme that followed provided a rare opportunity for a truly holistic approach to policy formulation and implementation, but due to lack of capacity, technical knowledge, and inadequate institutional coordination, the national reconstruction response was made in isolation of ecosystem restoration and broad conservation objectives, which were given low priority leading to responses that are inappropriate to, incompatible with, or unsupportive of, the sound utilisation of natural resources which most of the local communities of the East Coast are ultimately dependent upon to sustain their livelihoods. The project design is founded on overcoming three key barriers to the restoration of coastal ecosystems – that technical knowledge for low-cost restoration methods is not present on the island; that environmental issues have been given low priority during the tsunami relief and reconstruction programme; and that those processes leading to land degradation prior to the tsunami must be changed if the rehabilitated ecosystems are to provide the functions and services envisaged on a sustainable long-term basis. While the initial emphasis of this seven-year project will be on developing a scientifically-based, low-cost, community-based approach to rehabilitating three key coastal ecosystems – mangroves, coastal lagoons, and sand dunes – at specific sites, facilitating replication of these techniques all along the East Coast (and in due course other tsunami-affected coasts) is at its heart. In seeking to achieve this, it will implement a two-prong strategy to a) demonstrate that replication is technically feasible at other sites, and b) mainstream ecosystem restoration into the reconstruction process by making it a requirement of Government policy and building the capacity of a specialist Government unit to facilitate and support the process. Improved management of these restored and other coastal resources will be promoted to raise incomes, develop sustainable livelihoods, and improve sustainable land management, by facilitating the empowerment of the local communities to enter co-management agreements of the coastal areas with Government, and by providing best practice guidance and other tools and opportunities for them to improve their incomes. Support will be targeted at the rural poor and particularly women to improve their level of participation in social and economic activities, improve incomes and reduce poverty. 1 Area affected takes GIS mapping data on respective ecosystems as source. Ranking of damage in each site differ from slight through moderate to severe as stated in section 6.1 p. 56 of Rapid Assessment of Damage to Natural Ecosystems in the Coastal and Associated Terrestrial Environments – Green Report. The section in itself clarifies the generalized statement on extent / severity of damage to ecosystems since the inference is counter-intuitive. TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ____________________________________________________________________________ II ACRONYMS ___________________________________________________________________________________ III PART 1: SITUATION ANALYSIS __________________________________________________________________ 4 Part 1A: Context....................................................................................................................................................4 1A.1 Background ...............................................................................................................................................................4 Sri Lanka 4 Eastern Province 4 Tsunami 5 1A.2 National Significance of Climate Change and land degradation ...............................................................................5 1A.3 Global Significance of Biodiversity ............................................................................................................................6 1A.4 Institutional Context...................................................................................................................................................7 Outline 7 National 7 Provincial 10 District, Division and Village 10 Non-governmental Organisations 11 Post-tsunami 11 1A.5 Policy and Legislative Context.................................................................................................................................12 Policy 12 Legislation 16 1A.6 Socio-economic Context..........................................................................................................................................18 National 18 Eastern Province 19 PART 1B: Baseline Course of Action.................................................................................................................. 20 1B.1 Threats to the Biodiversity of the East Coast ..........................................................................................................20 Tsunami-related threats 20 Post-tsunami response-related threats 22 Pre-tsunami threats 23 1B.2 Barriers....................................................................................................................................................................26 1B.3 Stakeholder Involvement and Analysis....................................................................................................................29 PART 2: STRATEGY _________________________________________________________________________ 30 2.1 Project Rationale .....................................................................................................................................................30 2.2 Project Goal, Objectives, Outcomes and Outputs...................................................................................................30 2.3 Project Indicators, Risks, and Assumptions ............................................................................................................36 2.4 Expected global, national and local benefits ...........................................................................................................37 2.5 Country Eligibility and Drivenness...........................................................................................................................38 Eligibility for GEF 38 Conformity with Conventions 38 Conformity with GEF 40 Country Driven-ness 41 2.6 Linkages with IFAD Country Programme ................................................................................................................42 2.7 Linkages with Other Projects...................................................................................................................................42 GEF-financed 42 Other 44 2.8 Sustainability ...........................................................................................................................................................44 2.9 Replicability .............................................................................................................................................................46 2.10 Lessons learned ......................................................................................................................................................47 PART 3: PROJECT MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS__________________________________________________ 48 3.1 Execution and Implementation Arrangements.........................................................................................................48 National Steering Committee 49 PART 4: MONITORING AND EVALUATION PLAN AND BUDGET___________________________________________ 50 4.1 Monitoring and Evaluation.......................................................................................................................................50 4.2 Budget and Cost-effectiveness................................................................................................................................50 PART 5: LIST OF ANNEXES ____________________________________________________________________ 51 ACRONYMS ADB Asian Development Bank CBD Convention on Biodiversity CBO Community-based Organisation CCA Coast Conservation Act CCD Coast Conservation Department CCS Climate Change Secretariat CEA Central Environment Authority CEPOM Committee on Environmental Policy and Management CHA Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies CIRM Centre for Information Resources Management CNO Centre for National Operations CZMP Coastal