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Mountainous Protected Areas in Sri Lanka: The Way Forward from Tea to Tourism?

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Nature-Based Tourism in Asia’s Mountainous Protected Areas

Part of the book series: Geographies of Tourism and Global Change ((GTGC))

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Abstract

In 1889, the first modern nature reserve in Asia was set up at Yala, and in 1938 it was upgraded to the status of national park. Today, some 27% of Sri Lanka’s land is covered by protected areas (PAs), one of the highest levels in the world, yet despite such impressive conservation credentials, those PAs are increasingly under threat. This chapter focuses on Sri Lanka’s unique mountainous national parks, whose enormous biodiversity has faced significant impacts for centuries from tea plantations that significantly transformed most parts of the region. Despite the increasing number of tourists and their potential impact on the natural environment, tourism poses less of a threat to landscape transformation than agricultural activities such as tea plantations. In fact, there is substantial potential to develop nature-based tourism to balance the decline in mountain areas of traditional agriculture. The Knuckles Mountain Range case study introduced in this chapter presents potential and existing states of mountain tourism development in selected PAs. Results show the possibility of balancing environmental and economic cost-benefits, and more importantly, suggest ways to improve the efficiency of their management in the future.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Tourism and Regional Studies, Institute of Geography, Pedagogical University of Krakow, Krakow, Poland

    Renata Rettinger

  2. Department of Geography, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

    Dinesha Senarathna

  3. New Zealand Tourism Research Institute, Auckland, New Zealand

    Dinesha Senarathna

  4. Department of Tourism Studies, Faculty of Management, Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, Badulla, Sri Lanka

    Ruwan Ranasinghe

Authors
  1. Renata Rettinger
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  2. Dinesha Senarathna
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  3. Ruwan Ranasinghe
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Correspondence to Renata Rettinger .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Environment and Development Cluster, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu, Japan

    Thomas E. Jones

  2. Tourism and Hospitality Cluster, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu, Japan

    Huong T. Bui

  3. Department of Tourism and Regional Studies, Pedagogical University of Krakow, Krakow, Poland

    Michal Apollo

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Rettinger, R., Senarathna, D., Ranasinghe, R. (2021). Mountainous Protected Areas in Sri Lanka: The Way Forward from Tea to Tourism?. In: Jones, T.E., Bui, H.T., Apollo, M. (eds) Nature-Based Tourism in Asia’s Mountainous Protected Areas. Geographies of Tourism and Global Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76833-1_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76833-1_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-76832-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-76833-1

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