Investigation of Socioeconomic Characteristics of Agricultural Communities in Relation to the Development of Culture-Based Fisheries in Non-Perennial Reservoirs of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Participation of community groups is one of the main requirements for culture-based fisheries (CBF) in non-perennial reservoirs of Sri Lanka. Homogeneity of the group characteristics facilitates to arrive at collective decisions. And as such can be considered as positive feature for development of CBF. In this paper an attention made to identify the most important social and economic characteristics affecting the group decisions for development and management of CBF in non-perennial reservoirs of Sri Lanka. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that out of 25 measured parameters only 4 namely, the group size of fishers, participation rate in fisheries activities, caste of community and participation rate for regular meetings, were important in determining socioeconomic heterogeneity of the sample. Average income derived from CBF was appreciably high in communities with small group size and high participatory level in-group activities. Contingent evaluation of willingness to pay also demonstrated that the involvement of more people with fishing attitude would be preferred for the successful CBF activities. This analysis indicates that socioeconomic characteristics of rural communities can be meaningfully used for selecting non-perennial reservoirs suitable for development of CBF in Sri Lanka