Grotto at Koslanda Sanctuary middle falls
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Grotto at Koslanda Sanctuary middle falls
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Living Heritage Trust has given Heritage Reserves (Private) Limited a five-year franchise to use its 'Living Heritage' registered trademark and concept, for commerce and profit. It is envisaged that the Guru Gama will become self-supporting through income from this franchise accruing to Living Heritage Trust, once the initial assistance ends. Furthermore, many of the students will be absorbed into the spin-off businesses this will create. This initiative will also prepare an educated, ecologically and culturally sensitive workforce promoting traditional lifestyles, that will be in accord with the fast developing information era, with special emphasis on the cultural and eco-tourist industry.
All development with regard to the promotion and marketing of the 'Living Heritage' concept will be borne by the franchise holder. Provision will be made at each location that LHT operates in to provide space for the franchise holder to build and operate limited visitor accommodation. A limited number of short-term paying guests will be welcome as observers and participants in this experience. The paying guests will be charged at prevailing international rates. It is envisaged that close cooperation between these two organizations can enable an alternative developmental view to emerge, evincing a more active, realistic and sustainable approach to indigenous and traditional groups.
Although local financial establishments have made initial steps in the field of environmental management, these establishments have limited themselves to marketing and financing clean technologies and ignored the contribution of ecologically and economically sustainable, traditional lifestyles. Revealing and organizing valuable traditional social and cultural assets requires personal relationships and 'insider' status. This is the unique advantage Living Heritage Trust has as a result of its association with indigenous peoples through organizations like Cultural Survivors Trust and Kataragama Devotees Trust that have been active in this field for over a decade.
The areas we shall concentrate on are:
We believe that by creating both a ground model that can be duplicated and by fostering a new mindset that will manage and operate the opportunities that will consequently arise, we will prove that aid and trade can have a symbiotic relationship.
