Land use issues in Sri Lanka

Manjula Karunaratne

Department of Geography

Introduction

• Sri Lanka has a total land area of 6 552 500 hectares and a population of about 18 million of which nearly 80 percent is rural-based.

• It is currently the 19th most densely settled country in the world.

• The man-land ratio is about 0.36 hectares, though net per caput land availability is only about 0.15 hectares.

• The remaining 0.21 hectares per person is not readily available, because it is either designated for conservation or has topographical or ecological constraints.

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONSRome, 1999

How people think about land

Land use Issues

• Land degradation and poor management.

• Government retaining overall control of about 80% of the land.

• Diversity of policies and instantiations and clashes among them.

• Data gap and lack of knowledge of methods for analyzing and compiling information.

• Lack of participation of local people.

• Legal issues and weak judgmental system

Land use issues cont.…

• Land less people and people who have problem land ownership.

• Soil erosion and natural disasters.

• Involvement of multinational companies and their activities.

• Political bias and misusing policies and legislation.

• Corrupted bureaucracy system.

• Desertification.

• Highlighting race and religious identities on lands.

Dole Food Company Encroachment of Somawathiya National Park

Dole Food Company Encroachment of Somawathiya National Park

Issues on land use cont..

• Issues of rural – urban migration.

• Issues of urban areas and urban landscape.

• Attitudes on land and land ownership.

• Geo-political influences in the region.

• Lack of skillful and knowledgeable resources persons and technology.

• Loosing soil fertility and distribution of land based illnesses such as CKDs.

Cralle canal project in Malaysia

Suggested solutions

DLUPOO =District Land Use Planning Office

MAL=Ministry of Agriculture and Lands

• http://www.luppd.gov.lk/web/index.php?lang=si

Thank you