Abstract:
Sri Lanka is endowed with a long coastline and a diversity of coastal resources which providing
livelihoods to thousands of coastal dwellers. Coastal resources are being used by a multitude of
stakeholders; marine fishers, lagoon fishers, farmers, tourism stakeholders. As these stakeholder
groups have different interests and in achieving their aims, they tend to impose negative
externalities on each other as well as on the existing legal patterns which leads to rule breaking
incidences. The coastal ecosystem is also heavily subjected to climate change and people’s
adaptations in coping with climate change also have implications on existing rule breaking
incidences. In this context, the study was undertaken, which aimed at identifying the
implications of climate change adaptation strategies on rule-breaking incidences. The study was
carried out in Rekawa, in Hambantota District of Southern Province in Sri Lanka. The primary
data sources consisted of a focus group discussion and a field survey with a structured
questionnaire. Focus group discussion was conducted with a sample of 24 purposively selected
stakeholders including 6 representatives from each stakeholder group. A sample of 104
households was selected for the field survey with a questionnaire, following the stratified
random proportionate sampling method. The study revealed that all stakeholders experienced
and observed changes in climatic parameters, and extent of the impacts of these changes on
their livelihood activities varied among stakeholder groups. All stakeholder groups adopted
strategies to cope with the impacts of changes in climatic parameters while marine fishers and
lagoon fishers were highly affected by the impacts of climate change than farmers and tourism
stakeholders. The study also revealed that the strategies adopted by stakeholders affected the
existing legal systems by generating rule breaking incidences which led to conflicts between
stakeholder groups. Further, this study helps to identify the conflict resolution methods to the
response of rule-breaking incidences incurred as a result of climate change adaptation
strategies.
