Climate Perspectives - Sri Lanka

I used to fish nearly every day of my life. I learned to fish as a young boy to help my father, after

completing primary school I started to work. I have woken up before dawn, prepped my boat and

would head out to the Indian Ocean along the banks of Colombo. I would meet the other workers

at the dock and check the nets for holes. The main types of fishing we practice are, coastal,

offshore, and deep sea fishing. My men and I are mostly deep sea fishermen, we sail past the

coast into the deep ocean where we have always drop out nets.

Picture: Preserfish
May through August has always the hardest time of the year for fishing, monsoon season has just

started, the winds pick up pulling the tides closer into coastal towns. Monsoon season has always

been hard on fisherman, the wind and high tides make it dangerous to fish. The last couple of

years I have not been able to fish enough to support my family. When monsoon season comes

fishing operations and workers drop to ten percent, these men are paid less and work in more

dangerous situations. You can only fish off the coast due to Monsoon season, deep sea fishing is

too risky. Still, I am not lucky enough to be in the ten percent. Monsoon season was already

devastating, how were we supposed to know it would get worse.

Picture: unknown

We should have seen this coming, in the last several years we have seen an increase in

precipitation levels. When the earth’s atmosphere heats up it tends to hold more water particles,

these particles are readily available when a storm starts to form causing the storm to be more
dangerous than it would have been. These water droplets are responsible for the more extreme

monsoons and tsunamis. The 2004 Tsunami that hit Sri Lanka destroyed 2/3rds of the coastline

taking away millions o fishing jobs. Thousands of homes and people were lost due to this storm

Picture: 2004 Asian Tsunami

The Maldives is going through the same things and more, my family who lives there is

experiencing many of the same things we have. In 2009 their president decided to be the first

country in the world to start to go carbon neutral. He decided the country needed to take a stand

when he saw the islands start to disintegrate and disappear under the water. He noticed this when

he saw the roots from palm trees erupting from the ground. If the ocean were to rise only 3 feet,

more than 1200 Maldive islands would be completely submerged.

Picture: Reuters
Picture: ​Himmelreich

Fishing is important to Sri Lanka's economy. Fishing brings in two percent of Sri Lanka’s GDP

and employs over one millions people. Fishing stimulates the economy. This is the industry that

supports my family, my wife and two kids. It keeps a roof over our head and puts my children

through school. I need to be able to keep my living, but fishing seems to no longer be an option.

Sources

Akkoc, R. (2014, December 19). 2004 Boxing Day tsunami facts. Retrieved June 25, 2018.

Copenhagen Climate Change conference: Maldives threatened by rising sea levels and
acidification. (2009, December 14). Retrieved June 25, 2018.
Developing the Sri Lanka's Fishing Sector to Face the Global Demand. (n.d.). Retrieved June
25, 2018.

Fish catching,fish safety and hygiene. (n.d.). Retrieved June 25, 2018.

Fishery sector structure. (n.d.). Retrieved June 25, 2018.

Hancocks, P. (2014, December 26). Remembering a Sri Lanka town wiped away by tsunami.
Retrieved June 25, 2018.

National Geographic Society. (2012, October 09). Monsoon. Retrieved June 25, 2018.

Schofield, M. (n.d.). When you're only 8 feet above sea level, global warming isn't just an
idea. Retrieved June 25, 2018.

Sehara, D. B., Panikkar, K. K., & Karbhari, J. P. (n.d.). Socio-Economic Aspects of the
Monsoon Fisheries of the West Coast of India. Retrieved June 25, 2018.