Social welfare and social security in Sri Lankan fisheries

Since Sri Lanka’s independence in 1948, social welfare for the country’s fishing populations has been the responsibility of successive governments. During the latter half of the last millennium, the State has been channelling huge amounts of public funds into a number of social welfare and social security measures. However, the emphasis has mainly been on promotional welfare measures, such as housing, sanitation, infrastructure and training. Among the common problems in the delivery of such measures are regional disparities in the distribution of benefits (with the southern regions receiving the lion’s share), and expenditure on welfare dwindling with a change of government. If social security measures are defined, as by the ILO, to include medical care, sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, old-age benefit, employment injury benefit, family benefit, maternity benefit, invalidity benefit and urvivors’ benefit, then only the Fishermen’s Pension and ocial Security Benefit Scheme provides some kind of social ecurity for Sri Lanka’s fishing populations. There is an rgent need to address the social security issues of deep- a fishworkers, women and children. (73pp.

Is resilience socially constructed? Empirical evidence from Fiji, Ghana, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam

The objective of this paper is to better understand the various individual and household factors that influence resilience, that is, people⬢s ability to respond adequately to shocks and stressors. One of our hypotheses is that resilience does not simply reflect the expected effects of quantifiable factors such as level of assets, or even less quantifiable social processes such as people⬢s experience, but is also determined by more subjective dimensions related to people⬢s perceptions of their ability to cope, adapt or transform in the face of adverse events. Data collected over two years in Fiji, Ghana, Sri Lanka and Vietnam confirms the importance of wealth in the recovery process of households affected by shocks and stressors. However our results challenge the idea that within communities, assets are a systematic differentiator in people⬢s response to adverse events. The findings regarding social capital are mixed and call for more research: social capital had a strong positive influence on resilience at the community level, yet our analysis failed to demonstrate any tangible positive correlation at the household level. Finally, the data confirm that, like vulnerability, resilience is at least in part socially constructed, endogenous to individual and groups, and hence contingent on knowledge, attitudes to risk, culture and subjectivity

Sri Lanka: Action stations

Sri Lanka’s National Fisheries Policy needs to be remodelled to incorporate the SSF Guidelines in order to attain the goal of securing sustainable small-scale fisheries. The Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development (MFARD) of Sri Lanka recently prepared a White Paper on National Fisheries Policy in 2018, which was approved by the Cabinet and is expected to be presented to the parliament. It fails to address a number of compelling needs of the small-scale fisheries sector. The Sri Lanka Forum for Small-Scale Fisheries (SLFSSF) responded to this need; it embarked on a process to implement the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (the SSF Guidelines) between July 2018 and May 2019, with assistance from the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), as part of efforts of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) towards global implementation of the SSF Guidelines. Following the FAO Project Results Matrix, the SLFSSF took up a number of activities

oping with Risks and Uncertainties in Modern Fisheries: A Study of a Fishing Community in the South of Sri Lanka

Based on a study conducted in a maritime fishing community in southern Sri Lanka, this paper attempts to show that fishermen adapting mechanized fishing are confronted with new risks which are either absent or weakly present in traditional fisheries. Insurance and credit markets are unlikely to emerge to cope with these risks. In a context of ineffective state institutions and inadequately developed insurance and credit markets, credit provided by fish merchants performs an important insurance function in addition to a credit function

Dried fish making as a means of building resilience against fishing related vulnerabilities in small-scale fishing communities of Southern Sri Lanka

   Small-scale fishing communities are increasingly being affected by various shocks, changes, stressors and uncertainties, raising questions about their ability to cope with them. On another front, fishers are entangled in a poverty trap and escape from it is difficult due to their poor access to diverse livelihood capitals. Fisher populations have been compelled to confront these diversity of shocks and adapt themselves in order to “remain in the game”, which is an arduous task, not easily attainable. Thus, fishers need to develop strategies to effectively cope with shocks and stresses, or in other words, to be resilient. Dried fish making is one of the traditional household activities of fisher women in Sri Lanka. In this context, a review was carried out to identify the capability of “dried fish industry” towards building resilience against diverse vulnerabilities confronted by small-scale fishers. Based on the reviewed literature it could be argued that dried fish would contribute towards building resilience in three ways; i) as a source of supplementary income which tend to smoothen inter-temporal flows of daily fishing incomes. ii) as a cheap source of animal protein in meeting the nutritional needs of vulnerable people, and iii) by playing a major role towards women empowerment and accumulating social capital.</p

Is the Sri Lankan ecotourism industry threatened by climate change? A case study of Rekawa coastal wetland using contingent visitation approach

This study investigates intended visitation behavior of tourists toward Rekawa wetland under anticipated climate change (CC) scenarios. An interview-based contingent visitation survey was conducted with 365 foreign and domestic tourists to estimate the effects of CC on future visitation. Based on two IPCC scenarios using two direct and three indirect climatic factors, we composed a CC environmental index. The results show a decline in number of trips equal to 43 per cent and 53 per cent under scenarios 1 and 2 respectively, but the difference is not significant. Foreign and domestic tourists differ significantly with regard to socio-demographic characteristics and beliefs about CC effects at Rekawa. Controlling for such differences, we demonstrate that foreign tourists are less likely than domestic tourists to reduce future visitation to Rekawa due to CC impacts. Still, the future of ecotourism at Rekawa wetland is at risk if adaptation measures are not taken to meet CC impacts