The concept of the need to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in South Asia to provide safe heavens to targeted marine organisms, sea birds and critical marine habitats go back to more than half a Centuary. Since then, the basic concept of the need to provide protection to stressed marine ecosystems and associated organisms have not changed. However, one cannot but notice the large number of terminology that has grown over the years proposing receipes to achieve this goal. Terminology such as 'rational management' and 'sustainable management' had their hay days in the 1980s, now we talk o f' integrated management' and 'special area management (SAM)'. Inspite of all these, very little progress has actually been achieved in realising the true goals of MPAs. There have been several conferences, congresses, symposia and seminars that have forcused attention on the need to establish and to improve the status of the MPA's of South Asia and else where: The "Symposium on Endangered Marine Animals and Marine Parks" held in Cochin, India in 1985 was a milestone in this direction. At this Symposium De Silva (1985 a) speaking about coral reefs stated that "Although at many of these international gatherings, the need for rational management of coral reefs have been stressed, the coral reef management and conservation programmes of many developing countries of the Indopacific region have yet to receive the enthusiastic support of their governments". After a lapse of almost 10 years this statement still appears to be valid not only for coral reefs, but to MPA's as well. This is inspite of the vaste sums of money and the emormous number of 'scientific papers, that have been written on the subject since the symposium that has been mentioned.
Before we can start discussing the subject of this paper which is "Future issues and challenges for MPAs in South Asia" we need to have an understanding of the strengths and weakness of the past and the present. The time allocated does not allow me to go into specifics for each country, in any case this has been dealt by the country representatives during the previous working session. As such, I would like to take some examples particularly from Sri Lanka to illustrate some of the points I propose to highlight. With my long association with the MPA programmes of Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka I might be able to give you something more than a cursory ovetveiw which might be thought provoking if nothing else.
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The specialized nature of the environment in most MPAs requires a different approach to managing them as compared to Protected Areas on Land. What Baker (1983) has pointed out for Marine Parks is applicable to many MPAs as well. For example, he has stated that access to National Parks on land is often restricted by the nature of the terrain; it can also be controlled through the use of fences, roads and gates. In contrast, access to a Marine Park is often limited by weather and its distance from land. Further, once within the boundaries of a Marine Park, movement is difficult to be controlled as lateral movement is possible in any direction unlike in a National Park on land where roads, paths, fences and other obstacles could be used to limit movement. Problems are further compounded by the fact that the environment in a MPA is much more easily affected by activities such as land clearance and discharge of effluents carried out beyond its boundaries than in National Parks on land;and any drastic changes particularly underwater that might go undetected.
During the presentation I would like to deal with the following which might provide an insight not only into some of the existing constraints to optimal functioning of MPAs but some of the future issues and challanges as well;
a) The past, the present and the future of the Hikkaduwa Marine Sanctuary in Sri Lanka. b) The need to resolve conflicts of political, inter departmental/agency and scientific interests. c) Planned management as opposed to management by crisis. d) Enhancement of MPA buffer zones as alternate employment sites. e) Positive and negative impacts of tourism. f) National and regional inter-agency cooperation. g) Use of mass media for formal/non-formal education.