Environmental policy and administrative management

This project will minimize land degradation in the forest mountain areas in the Badulla, Monaragala and Ratnapura Districts by preventing forest fires. The project targets an area where local rural farmers live in a geographically isolated locality. The Mihimaw Science Foundation (MSF) will establish fire belts in the buffer zone, hold awareness programmes for farmers, set up a youth volunteer corps to prevent fires and plant trees in selected areas that are the most vulnerable. The project will also set up live fences, composed of Gliricidia trees. MSF believes that the outcomes of this project will be the reduction of forest fires by 80% within 10 years through the practice of better agricultural methods by the community, a 50% increase of land quality of the area destroyed annually by forest fires within two years, an increase of 80% of the land quality of selected plots through the practice of agricultural conservation methods, and finally the strengthening of the sustainable farming system in the target areas.

Sri lanka