Sri Lanka is a biodiversity hotspot, because of that reason so many different sponge species can be observed around the Sri Lankan coastal waters. Due to overharvest and disease, wild sponge stocks worldwide are in decline. Farming sponges is a solution to overcome the market demand. Sponges have been commercially cultivated in many countries worldwide. But Sponge farming is a very new field to Sri Lanka. The project will be established in Northern region of Sri Lanka supporting the communities.
Sustainable sea food and sustainable marine products not practices in Sri Lanka. Even the resources are available on marine economy the people are not been trained to make income through marine resources. Unemployment rate is very high in Sri Lanka. This is also a main problem for unemployed youth to find jobs in the country.
Therefore our initiative is to set up a sponge farm in Sri Lanka to empower communities towards sustainable economic model. This will reduce the unemployment. This will help in Sri Lanka to do sustainable ocean farming in Sri Lanka.
Create income generation opportunities for people low income families. Create job opportunities for unemployed youth in Sri Lanka.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
