Community Participation in Conservation and Protection of Rare and Valuable Tree Species Sandal Wood (Santalum Album)

摘要

Sandal (Santalum album) naturally grows in some dry scrub forests mainly located in two administrative districts: Badulla and Rathnapura. Due to large domestic and international demand, sandal trees in most of the forests in Sri Lanka are indiscriminately exploited. In addition to the organized illegal fellings, the natural regeneration of this valuable species has been badly hampered due to fire, grazing and browsing mainly by the nearby communities. Various law enforcement efforts such as boundarydemarcation, declaration as conservation forests, and increase the physical protection capacity by attaching more field staff for patrolling duties, were implemented by the Forest Department to protect and conserve these valuable sandal-bearing forests.These protection efforts were able to control illegal fellings up to some extent but failed to control the fire and grazing problems which are the main causes for destruction of the natural regeneration. However, natural regeneration is very important for the substance of the sandal-bearing forests as top revenue earner and also to conserve its genetic diversity (Radomiljac et al. 1998)