Skip Bread Crumbs

    

 

 

 

I carried out MS (1985/86) and PhD Field Research in Sri Lanka (1989-1991) focused on forest garden agroforestry systems and their landscape scale social and ecological function. I continue to work in this area with the NeoSynthesis Research Center (NSRC), a Sri Lanka based NGO. See recent work by our Executive Director, Ms. Kamal Melvani at

http://worldagroforestry.org/projects/landcare/content/regenerative-agriculture-sri-lanka

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was on sabbatical in Sri Lanka in 2004 when the Indian Ocean Tsunami hit. I worked with colleagues at the University of Peradeniya and the NeoSynthesis Research Centre on relief efforts in Kalmunai, Ampara District on the East Coast. My work there focused on designing and managing the administration of a survey of 1400 households in Kalmunai neighborhoods where NSRC was providing relief services and developing a database with which relief services could be accounted for. Kalmunai was one of the areas most affected by Tsunami. After the initial relief effort, NSRC staff continued to work with partners in Kalmunai on organic farming and coastal buffer planting I returned in 2006 but could not go back due to the re-escalation of civil war until this year.

Kalmunai, Sri Lanka January 2005 after the Indian Ocean Tsunami

 

I returned to Sri Lanka in 2010 and 2012. In the mean time NSRC has accomplished a great deal in the Kalmunai Area. The community has proven to be highly resilient. Reconstruction has progressed, farmers are growing organic food, fishermen are back to the sea, and weavers are once again making beautiful cloth. The coastal buffer forest planted with the local community is now 3 km long.

 

3 km Coastal forest buffer planted by NSRC with local community while weavers once again create beautiful cloth.