Unawatuna ladies participate in training course as Sewalanka Foundation's community based tourism project.

Sewalanka Foundation knows through experience that sustainable community-based eco-tourism is dependant on benefits being generated for the environment, the community and visiting tourists.

During 2003/04, Sewalanka Foundation continued to support the regeneration of mangroves in Pottuvil Lagoon; north of the popular East Coast tourist resort of Arugam Bay. Fishermen from the Hidayapuram Fishermen’s Cooperative Society, are working to regenerate mangroves destroyed during the conflict and thereby restore the lagoon’s ecosystem. The mangrove replanting costs are funded through ecotours provided by fishermen to visiting foreign and local tourists. In 2003/04, 96 ecotours were conducted, generating an income of Rs.105,600 for the society and its members; these funds enabled the fishermen to plant 32,344 mangroves in Pottuvil Lagoon.

Increasingly local and foreign tourists are recognising the natural beauty of the last remnant of virgin tropical rainforest in Sri Lanka; Sinharaja Forest Reserve. In 2003/04 Sewalanka conducted training and awareness programmes and facilitated 25 Sinharaja community members to visit Unawatuna in Galle to see how home-based tourism operates. Now some villagers have renovated rooms, registered with the Tourist Board and have begun to host tourists. This project is part of Sewalanka Foundation’s environmental conservation project that started in 2001 and aims to introduce alternative income generation activities for the rainforest-border communities.

A third project was also started by Sewalanka Foundation in 2003/04, working with the Unawatuna Women Beach Vendors. Project activities included sewing training and art classes for youth, aimed at producing craft items and clothes for tourists.