Sri Lanka's National Mangrove Regeneration — From Seacology-Sudeesa Microfinance to a UN World Restoration Flagship

Starting in 2015, the US NGO Seacology and Sri Lankan NGO Sudeesa built a novel financing model around Sri Lanka's mangrove forests: in exchange for protecting an average of 21 acres of mangrove per community, roughly 12,000 women in 1,500 coastal communities received livelihood training and access to microloans (funded by an initial US$3.4 million budget that grew to over $4 million), repaid through 1,500 newly formed Community Beneficiary Organisations. By the project's 2020 close, it had helped protect all 8,815 hectares of Sri Lanka's then-existing mangrove forest and replant 3,885 hectares of degraded mangrove with more than 775,000 seedlings grown in three community nurseries.
The approach was subsequently absorbed into a national mangrove-regeneration effort that the United Nations named one of seven 2024 World Restoration Flagships, recognising a plan to expand Sri Lanka's mangrove cover by more than 50% to reach 10,000 hectares by 2030 — bringing eligibility for further UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration funding and technical support. Independent academic research on community-led restoration sites in northern Sri Lanka has since found measurably higher mangrove density and higher fish catch per boat in restored areas compared with unrestored ones.
The programme's governance is not without gaps. In 2024 the environment minister de-gazetted roughly 400 hectares of the legally protected Vidattaltivu Nature Reserve in Mannar district to allow an aquaculture farm proposed by the National Aquaculture Development Authority. The decision was only reversed in 2025 after the Environmental Foundation Limited and the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society brought a successful legal challenge — a reminder that only around 60% of the country's mangroves carry formal protection and that enforcement capacity remains thin.

Read the full analysis: https://www.seacology.org/project/sri-lanka-mangrove-conservation-project/