Session I - Biodiversity Conservation Summary of Session Theme Talk Managing the Marine Environment to Meet Future Challenges Rajasuriya A. Coordinator, Marine and Coastal Thematic Area, IUCN Country Office, Sri Lanka [email protected] The ocean covers about seventy percent of the planet. The ocean provides many economic activities that include fisheries, tourism, and marine transport. Two-thirds of the value of all natural services is in the world is provided by the ocean. Fisheries related activities alone support the livelihood of approximately 200 million people in the world. As an island Sri Lanka is heavily depend on the ocean for economic development and food security. The coastal zone contains 62% of the industries and 70% of infrastructure related to tourism. Sri Lanka has a coastline of about 1620 km. The continental shelf covers about 30,000 km2. It is relatively narrow, averaging 22.5 km, width and the mean depth is approximately 75 m. The exclusive economic zone is about 517,000 km2. The marine environment around the country is governed by the northeast and southwest monsoons. The tidal range is low; the maximum spring tide is less than 1 m. The country is endowed with highly productive marine ecosystems; mangroves, sea grass meadows and coral reefs. In addition there are many coastal wetlands including salt marshes. The majority of mangroves are associated with coastal lagoons and the sea grass meadows are in the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay where the sea is relatively shallow and calm. Coral reefs occur around the island with the largest shallow-water coral banks in the Gulf of Mannar. There are 40 species of mangrove and mangrove associated plants, 15 species of sea grasses and 208 species of corals recorded for Sri Lanka. There may be more than 1500 species of marine fish in Sri Lanka’s marine waters. The charismatic marine mega fauna include 5 species of sea turtles and twenty eight species of marine mammals. Although some groups have been studied relatively well, there is a general lack of information on marine biodiversity, especially the marine invertebrates. Sri Lanka depends heavily on marine resources both in coastal and offshore areas. Fishing is main economic activity supporting nearly 1.25 million people. The coastal waters provide about 65% of the marine fish production. Extraction of hydrocarbons may become one of the most important economic activities in the future. The marine environment around the country is heavily influenced by human activities including unsustainable resource exploitation and the use of destructive fishing methods. It is widely accepted that the coastal waters have been overfished as the populations of many large fish species have been reduced drastically. Many land-based activities have contributed to high levels of pollution in the coastal environment. Poor garbage disposal, agricultural runoff and industrial and domestic waste have polluted several coastal lagoons, beaches and inshore waters. More recently Sri Lanka has experienced negative impacts of global warming and climate change. Coral reefs have indicated this rapid environmental change through extensive coral bleaching events. Sri Lanka lost much of its shallow water coral reefs in 1998 during the unprecedented coral bleaching event in the Indian Ocean. A similar bleaching event has occurred in 2016 where many shallow water corals have been affected. However, adaptive management is lacking in Sri Lanka. Although several marine protected areas and fisheries management areas have been established, there is little or no management of human activities in these declared areas. In general there is a lack of implementation of laws and regulations which result in the continuous degradation of the marine environment. Keywords: Marine environment, Coastal, Resources, Management Proceedings of the International Forestry and Environment Symposium 2016, Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. 1 Session I – Biodiversity Conservation Summary of Session Theme Talk Malaysian Borneo - World Class Wildlife Tourism in South East Asia Newsome D. Associate Professor, Environment and Conservation School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, Murdoch University, South St, Murdoch, Perth, Western Australia [email protected] A world renowed wildlife industry has developed along the banks of the Kinabatangan River. Wildlife that can be seen include Bornean pygmy elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis), bearded pig (Sus barbatus), four species of monkey, orang-utan, estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) and more that 200 species of birds. Tourism operations and activities comprise guided boat tours on the main river and its tributaries and associated ox-bow lakes. However during the last 10 years there has been a proliferation of tourist lodges and today many boats operate along the Kinabatangan River taking tourists out on early morning and afternoon excursions to view wildlife. For example, during the peak tourist season there are as many as 20 boats travelling some of watercourses at the same time. Such an intensity of boat traffic searching for wildlife has the capacity to spoil visitor experience because of crowding at a wildlife sighting, boats vying for the best position for client viewing, possible noise impacts, the presence of exhaust fumes, a reduction in the benefits of tranquillity and an increased risk of disturbance to wildlife. It is possible that over the longer term negative client feedback on Tripadvisor and other tourist communication media, relating to the above problems, may have a detrimental effect on the image of the tourism industry located along the river negating good word of mouth reports and repeat visitation. Accordingly, this presentation briefly considers Sabah as an ecotourism destination, reports on how ecotourism is practiced, identifies emrging visitor experience problems and considers the influence of the wider landscape on the wildlife and other tourism resources. Keywords: Ecotourism, Wildlife, Kinabatangan River Proceedings of the International Forestry and Environment Symposium 2016, Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. 2 Session I - Biodiversity Conservation (C-01) Reef Resilience in Coral Reef Research and Management Perera N. Blue Resources Trust 86, Barnes Place, Colombo, Sri Lanka Abstract Coral reefs are one of the most biologically diverse and environmentally sensitive ecosystems. Climate change and rising sea temperatures have been identified as one of the biggest threats to coral reefs, compounding existing pressures cause by anthropogenic influences such as overfishing and pollution. Identifying reef habitats and coral species that are more tolerant of such stresses is therefore important in conserving overall coral reef diversity and biomass. Recent coral bleaching events induced by elevated sea temperatures have resulted in unprecedented coral mortality across the world. However some reefs and coral species have withstood bleaching better than others. Similarly, recovery after mass mortality events has been patchy and resulted in phase shifts in species composition. Understanding such dynamics as well as environmental and physical variables affecting reef resilience and recovery is key to effective management of coral reefs and associated biota. Incorporating resilience parameters into adaptive management strategies is now considered an important aspect of Marine Protected Area management. Coral reef research in Sri Lanka has for a large part been isolated and lacking long term monitoring and time series data. In addition, management has been reactive and often static rather than predictive and adaptive. Key aspects of reef resilience and its importance in management strategies will be discussed in this presentation. Keywords: Coral reef, Climate change, Reef resilience Proceedings of the International Forestry and Environment Symposium 2016, Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. 3 Session I - Biodiversity Conservation (2) Diversity and Temporal Variation of Avian Fauna in a Rice Growing Landscape in Kurunegala District, Sri Lanka Gunathilake A.M.K.H. and Chandrasekara W.U.* Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka *[email protected] Abstract Rice fields are man-made semi-aquatic ecosystems maintained for the purpose of paddy cultivation. Five contrastingly different successive culture stages viz, preparatory stage, vegetative stage, ripening stage, harvesting stage and post-harvest stage occur along a single paddy culture cycle. Although it has been recorded that a wide variety of fauna are associated with these culture stages, there is a dearth of information on the temporal variation of avian fauna along these culture stages. Therefore, a study was carried out in a rice growing landscape at Katugampola, a rural village in Kurunegala District, to investigate if there is any temporal variation of avian diversity along the culture stages of a paddy culture cycle there. It was hypothesized that the physical and biological characteristics vary along the successive culture stages, and that each culture stage offers a predictable habitat for a distinct assemblage of birds. The sampling protocol of the study included in situ observation, identification and enumeration of different bird species using the fixed radius point count sampling method, and assessing the