Small Fishers Federation Lanka

The effect of the Tsunami from 300 meters off the shoreline to between 300 and 750 meters on shore was catastrophic for almost the entire coast of Sri Lanka. The beach and artisanal fishery communities, where houses are invariably right at the beach top with boats kept above or at the waters edge suffered a very significant overall loss of life, destruction of property and infrastructure resulting in consequences far beyond these obvious initial losses: e.g. psychological, administrative, logistical, operational, marketing, markets etc. etc. The offshore and deep water multi day boat fishery was less badly hit and because the vast majority of boats are company owned, this sector of the industry may well be better able to support its own regeneration .Offshore and deep sea fishery is exploited mostly by vessels in the 40 to 50 foot powered by 90hp engines, utilizing, large mesh gill nets, long lining, and trolling. By tsunami more than 260,000 People in Sri Lanka have lost their livelihood as a result of tsunami disaster. Of them 88000 fishing community members are the direct victims. Fishing boats, nets and other equipment and places of work were of them have completely destroyed. The coir cottage industries were swept away by the ocean waves. The little homesteads where people cultivated their crops became uncultivable owing to high salinity. Their boats and the nets along with their seaside homes were swept away. The SFFL took several measures to re-establish people in their businesses and bring hope, in a moment of despair as there was a scarcity of boats; Small Fishers Federation had replaced the canoes, boats and the nets under the support of Terre des Hommes, Netherlands.

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