ANGULANA, SRI LANKA – Little children play on the beach in Angulana, a fishing village in Sri Lanka’s Colombo district. The smell of fish hangs in the air, and the ocean sends a breeze across the shore.
Jayasiri Peiris, 39, has carried on his family tradition of being a fisherman. But he says it’s tough to raise a family on a fisherman’s wage.
“My father had been fishing for the past 50 years,” he says. “All those years he was able to make a living to feed in day to day only. He was never able to save anything for the future.”
Peiris says he was able to study only up to grade seven because he had to help his father sell the fish he caught. He continued working as a fisherman, and, after some time, he was able to purchase a small boat. He says he hopes he can eventually afford an out boat, a boat with an engine.
“My desire is to purchase an out boat after obtaining a loan,” he says with a dreamy look in his eyes.
But he says there is no place here where he can obtain a loan with affordable payment options.
But that isn’t the only challenge facing local fishermen. Peiris says that he and the other fishermen don’t have a place to secure their boats or fishing nets at night. Sometimes the sea is rough, so he can’t go fishing. He says he also doesn’t own any nets that can hold large fish.
A few months ago, Peiris suffered a leg injury, which crippled him. Now he can’t fish on his own but can only help his brothers. The sole source of income now comes from the string hoppers, or rice noodles, that his wife makes and sells.
He has five children, four daughters and a son, to support. He says his one daughter has musical talent, but he has no means to give her the lessons she needs.
Fishermen say they can’t earn a living in the fishing industry – the traditional livelihood in coastal villages in Sri Lanka – making it difficult to lift their families out of poverty. The government and nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, have implemented various policies and programs to promote the fishing industry and assist fishermen. But officials admit more needs to be done and identify many challenges in the development of the fishing industry.
The fishing industry contributes about 70 percent of all animal protein consumed in the country, according to the Department of Census and Statistics. Fish production increased by more than 13 percent in 2010, according to 2010 statistics from the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development.
Fishing has been the most important economic activity in the country’s coastal areas, according to the ministry. There are more than 220,000 fishermen in Sri Lanka and about 2.5 million involved in fishing and related livelihoods.
Surrounded by the Indian Ocean, Sri Lankans living on the coast of the island country have made their living in the fishing industry for generations. They have a culture of their own, and fishing methods are passed down from father to son. Today some of the ancient methods, like stilt fishing in southern Sri Lanka, still exist alongside modern techniques.
But many fishermen say that the fishing industry is only profitable for the “mudalali,” the traders who buy the fish from the fishermen to sell to consumers. They say it’s hard to support their families through the traditional fishing profession.
M.W. Dayaratne, 52, the father of a son and a daughter, says he has been a fisherman for 22 years. But he says it’s been difficult to recover from the 2004 tsunami, which destroyed the homes and belongings of people living in Sri Lanka’s coastal villages. The government and NGOs provided assistance to victims, but Dayaratne, one of the tsunami victims, says he didn’t receive any help with shelter.
Like Peiris, he says that coastal fishermen face many challenges. He says the village lacks a boatyard for his and fellow fishermen’s boats. He says that fish traders also ask for steep commissions, which make the sale of fish difficult. He says that sometimes thieves cut the fishermen’s nets when they are laid in the deep sea.
He says fishermen also face legal problems with the local government and surrounding countries when they accidentally cross the legal borders of the ocean. He says that fishermen can’t work when the sea is rough, which is the worst during June and July. During these months, they must look for other odd jobs, which pay minimum wage.
Bandula Rodrigu, 40, a fisherman, also says it’s hard to earn a living through this profession.
“My dream is to buy a new motorboat and start a new fish stall,” he says. “But I have no money, and I have no[t] any ways to earn money.”
He says he struggles to support his two sons and one daughter. They have had to find work, too, because he has been ill.
“My elder son is 18 years old, and he is talented,” he says. “But because of our poverty, he could study [only] up to grade 11. I am sick for month, so my son is doing several jobs to earn money to protect the family.”
Chandana Roshan, who has a wife, two daughters and a son, is trying to break into the fishing industry. But he says he doesn’t have enough money saved yet to start his own venture.
“I am not a boat owner yet,” he says. “So I work with my brother in his boat.”
He says he misses his family when he is out at sea.
“Some days I should stay few days in the sea,” he says. “During that duration, my memory goes around my little children and wife.”
But he says he needs to work hard to earn a living and lift his family out of poverty.
“We are poor, and still we don’t have our own home,” he says. “And now we stay at my sister’s home.”
Samantha Peiris, 31, a common last name here, says he can’t afford a boat either.
“I am not an owner of any boats,” he says. “I help other fishermen who are my relations and friends to catch fish.”
He says they don’t always catch many fish.
“Some days, we do not get much fish due to accidents in the sea and unexpected natural variations,” he says.
He says this makes it hard to support his wife and children.
“I am very poor, and still I have no water supply and even a sanitary facility to my house,” he says.
Wasantha Peiris, a veteran fisherman, is well-known in his community, and the other fishermen respect him. He says fishermen now need boats with motors in order to catch fish.
“There are no fish available in shallow waters, so we need to go further into boats that measure at least 28 feet to 30 feet with an out boat motor,” he says.
Still, he says profits are small.
“Though we risk our lives most of the time that we are out in the deep sea, the profit goes to the mudalali, and sometimes we [hardly] have anything left,” he says.
Another fisherman, Ajantha Fernando, 34, has four daughters. He says the challenges in the business are many.
“We have no[t] any benefits, even credit facilities yet, and we did not save any money for future,” he says. “We have no any insurance policies, so our profession is becoming unsecure. Government or other organizations do not help us to carry on our job successfully.”
Women also engage in the fishing industry to support the meager income brought home by their husbands. They mainly work in the processing and marketing sectors of industrial fisheries.
The Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development is responsible for the development and management of the industry in partnership with other government agencies, NGOs, regional organizations, boards and insurance companies.
A ministry official, who declined to be named, says that the ministry is always trying to increase fish production in Sri Lanka, and, therefore, increase the quality of life for fishermen and their families. He says the government has designed plans to achieve this in the Fisheries Sector Development Strategy 2009-2013, the Ten-Year Development Policy Framework 2007-2016 and the Mahinda Chinthana, the national vision of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The Ten-Year Development Policy Framework aims to improve nutritional status and food security by increasing fish production; minimize post-harvest losses; improve the quality and safety of fish products; increase employment opportunities; improve the socio-economic status of fishing communities; increase foreign exchange earnings from fish products; and conserve the coastal and aquatic environment.
The Fisheries Sector Development Strategy also aims to enhance the socio-economic status of the fishing communities and increase national fish production. It plans to find ways to use yet sustain resources, as well as diversify the industry to adapt to climate change and coastal disasters.
The Mahinda Chinthana also includes various measures to help coastal fisherman. In it, the president has promised to provide 500 boats at concessionary prices to coastal fishermen; develop 100 fishery harbors, anchorages, boatyards and fishery craft centers around the coast; give fishermen fuel subsidies; provide incentives to the private sector to develop fishing technology; and replace nets and other fishing gear lost during natural disasters at subsidized costs.
The ministry official says the ministry also now has an insurance scheme for fishermen and many training programs to develop fishermen’s skills. More than 50 percent of fishermen had received formal fishery-related training as of 2010, and the ministry aims to increase this to 85 percent by 2013, according to ministry statistics. In the future, the ministry aims to give fishermen many facilities, such as boats and nets, the official says.
An official from the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, who also declined to be named, says that, in addition to these policies and programs, the department is pursuing investments in the fishing sector from the foreign and local business community; introducing new technology to develop the fishing sector; and implementing information technology programs and community development programs.
NGOs are also involved in improving the fishing industry for coastal fishermen. Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, an NGO committed to maintaining healthy ocean and aquatic preserves, launched the Sri Lanka Tuna Fishery Improvement Partnership in May. Members of the Sri Lanka Association for Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, which include scientists, academics and entrepreneurs, aim to address issues relating to use, management and governance of fisheries and aquatic resources.
International organizations, such as the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization and International Fund for Agricultural Development, have also gotten involved.
Fish production has steadily increased each year since the tsunami, and the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development aims to continue this progression in the years to come, according to its reports.
Still, officials say many challenges lie ahead in the development of this sector.
The ministry official says fishing management and comprehensive fishery laws are weak. He also says that Sri Lanka’s strategic position, quality of fish landings, application of fishing technologies, fishing infrastructure, maintenance of fishery harbors and research are all poor. Moreover, he says that the coasts are polluted, and the 2004 tsunami set the whole fishing sector back.
The department official says that the government needs to coordinate grants to provide relief to fishermen who are in distress, implement awareness programs for boat owners and crew members, review the recovery of bank loans issued through cooperatives and coordinate the insurance scheme for fishermen.
