Centre for a Smart Future (CSF) in partnership with Lanka Environment Fund (LEF) and Blue Resources Trust (BRT) are organising a half-day event marking World Wildlife Day 2025, filled with insightful discussions, interactive activities, and networking opportunities. The event will primarily focus on conservation finance issues (which is the theme of WWD 2025), but will also feature topics like how to balance tourism and nature, and the complexities of financing Marine Protected Area. The event aims to generate interest in pathways for mobilizing the necessary financial resources to protect our country’s valuable wildlife and nature, and encourage pragmatic thinking.

As Sri Lanka's new government looks to revise the country’s investment framework, understanding current global trends and best practices will be crucial. Anchored to global investment policy trends identified by the UNCTAD in a recent report, this Policy Brief presents seven observations stemming from a comparison of these global trends against the investment-related provisions of the Economic Transformation Act (ETA) passed in 2024.

Tourism in Sri Lanka stands at a crossroads. While the industry is a crucial driver of economic recovery, it also places immense pressure on the country’s natural resources. This paradox—where tourism both depends on and threatens nature—requires urgent attention for long-term sustainability. CSF's new report 'Spotting the Problem' explores this intricate relationship through the lens of complexity theory, highlighting the case of overcrowding and safari misbehaviour in Yala National Park Block 1.

In 2024, the Centre for a Smart Future (CSF) conducted a research study on how local stakeholders perceive the interactions between tourism and nature in Maskeliya, Kalpitiya, and Yala National Park, with the objective of unpacking destination-level realities of how tourism activities are taking place in Sri Lanka’s nature-abundant tourism sites. This Background and Scoping Report provides details on the rationale and objectives of the study, and serves as a reference document for anyone who wants to know more about the methodologies used and the limitations encountered that shaped the findings and observations of the study.

Colombo Urban Lab hosted Professor Jonathan Spencer from the University of Edinburgh and Dr. Avanka Fernando from the University of Colombo on the 16th of January 2025 in an online event titled "Debt without Development? Sri Lanka's Urban Regeneration Project's Failed Promises". The guests shared their insight on Sri Lanka’s development projects and debt, and the impact of the Colombo Urban Regeneration Project on the primary stakeholders, the local community. Alongside the discussion, a review of the key insights from the report, “Built on Sand: Colombo’s Urban Regeneration Project” was presented by the Colombo Urban Lab team. 

A new publication by CSF helps to unpack the role of Blue Carbon ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass and salt marshes in Sri Lanka in combating climate change, and how Blue Carbon projects can be leveraged to finance coastal ecosystem conservation. This latest Knowledge Primer explains these aspects, reviews the international mechanisms that guide blue carbon markets, and puts forward key considerations for Sri Lanka in implementing blue carbon schemes.