Abstract:
Costal environment is an amenity which has high scenic value and gives great enjoyment and
pleasure for mankind. As a result most of the tourists have selected coastal areas as their
desirable holiday destinations. However, growth of coastal tourism has created many
environment problems at the present. Destruction of biodiversity is one of the major problem
amongst them. Persistence of biodiversity is very important for maintaining ecological
balance of coastal environment. Similarly these environment provide unique ecological
services such as sediment storage and transport, water filtration, providing habitats for coastal
species and functional links between terrestrial and marine environments.
The objective of this research was to find out effects of tourism on biodiversity in the coastal
environments. South-western coastline between Bentota and Kosgoda river outfalls was
purposively selected as the study area. Stratified random sampling method was applied for
the collecting primary data in this research. The sample consists of three groups as adjoining
households, workers in the tourist hotels and tourist guides. In addition field observation was
made to gather further information. Secondary data were collected from publish and
unpublished sources and websites. Raw data was analyzed by using statistical techniques
available in Microsoft Excel Software.
It was reveals that the local people collect turtle eggs and sell them as income source,
threatening the extinction of this endangered turtles. The removal of sea grass and other
plants to make open beaches for recreations was seen as another destructive action. It
accelerates coastal erosion and loss of the habitat for coastal species. Some tourist hotels
empty their sewage and other waste directly into sea water.
The study found, some tourism related activities has threatened the coastal species. Also
these activities are caused to sensitive coastal environment destruction. Raising awareness
about value of coastal environment among the local population, especially involve owners
and other responsible persons of the hotels and visitors, strengthening control measures and
enforcement of environmental regulation and standards would helped to protect these coastal
habitat for sustainable tourism development.
