Paper short abstract:

For the purpose of this paper, I will analyze the current stakes of environmental governance in southern rural societies, exemplified by case studies of nature conservation projects in southern Sri Lanka.

Paper long abstract:

With a considerable economic growth since the end of the war in 2009, Sri Lankan society faces today major changes and a rapid process of globalization, which affect both urban and rural areas. Within these new development dynamics, the natural environment which contributes to the fame of the island is gradually threatened by the introduction of massive industrialization and economic development. Regarding those changes, it is interesting to question the current public policies of natural resources management in a place where this process of development is particularly high and rapid: the district of Hambantota (Southern Province).

For the purpose of this paper, I will use the concept of environmental governance to examine how in Hambantota, multiple stakeholders negotiate and interact in the management of natural resources in parallel with the need for economic development of this area. For this purpose, I will use concrete examples from a field research conducted between 2011 and 2013 in several protected areas of the district. According to the purpose of the panel, the paper will particularly focus on how the different instances involved in environmental governance in Hambantota district refer to different registers of norms, rules and values and how they are perpetually negotiated locally by the stakeholders.