摘要：The mountain ecosystems of Sri Lanka are now in crisis, with rapid degradation of the productive resource base and the environment. There are unmistakable symptoms of unsustainability in current production practices and patterns of resource use in tea agroecosystems. The present study was undertaken with the overall objective of examining the sustainability of resource use, with special reference to the land management practices on tea plantations on the Uva highlands of Sri Lanka. Eight different tea plantation units were randomly selected for detailed study, representing a total area of 4548 ha. The information related to the management of the plantations was mainly collected from plantation records. The findings of the study confirmed that the ecological capital of the plantations is in a critical state. Private management companies have been exercising a strategy aimed at short-term profits by extracting higher yields with the aid of inorganic fertilizers and other agrochemicals. Hence activities such as replanting, infilling and bush management have been neglected. Shortage of skilled labor is a major threat to the future of the tea estates. An inter-estate analysis of the quality of the management of tea plantations indicated that most of the tea estates had become marginal. Long-term management plans need to be formulated and implemented in order to make the tea plantations ecologically and economically sustainable.
