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Tsunami and Displacement Project

The tsunami was the biggest natural disaster in modern history and it called for a pan-Asian relief effort on a scale that had never before been seen. The immediate impact on the coastal communities affected not only their lives, homes and villages, but also their livelihoods. Many survivors fished to earn their living, farmed close to the sea or relied on low scale tourism. Even now years later, in India and Sri Lanka people remain displaced from their homes and livelihoods because of planned developments from which they have been excluded and marginalised. While they are yet to be re-housed the land that they lived on is regarded by policy and decision makers  prime real estate for major tourism developments. As a result local people may only have land available to them which is far and  from the sea making it impossible to continue with their beach  based livelihoods.
Tourism Concern is working with local groups to support displaced people and improve their current situation and contribute towards positive development that benefits all stakeholders and also results in sustainable tourism.

What we are doing

Through its extensive network of partnerships, Tourism Concern is working  with thousands of Asian tsunami survivors to support them as they confront plans for  major tourism developments and  to ensure that such developments are truly sustainable and take their needs into account. In order to improve the environment for the exercise of  civil and political rights and to enable people defending their human rights to campaign peacefully, Tourism Concern  has entered into partnership with Asian organisations.The partners are working  with an array of NGO and civil society networks  in the most severely affected coastal regions, to strengthen advocacy for change at local, national and international level.

The partners are monitoring ongoing tourism development, reconstruction plans and displacement issues to ensure that local beneficiaries have access to current information and are provided with the skills, support and infrastructure to act on the information. Tourism Concern is supporting the initiative through lobbying and advocacy work in the UK.

This project is supported by the Big Lottery Fund.