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Powdery white sandy beaches, pristine blue water: both Australia and Sri Lanka are world renowned for their coastal landscapes. However, this story is not about the beauty of the ocean but rather its bounty and blessings. This is a story about how sea-dwelling blue speckled crustaceans brought resilience and hope to a community, and the phenomenal growth they spurred in what was once a small, largely ignored opportunity in the coastal area of Poonakary in the northern region of Sri Lanka.
“After the end of the war many fishers and cooperatives reorganised themselves hoping to start anew. This proved tougher than anticipated. We had lost our boats and our gear. With no access to markets we were forced to sell our catch at low prices to middlemen, and many of us were shackled with severe debt,” recalls Sithaturai Emaunavel, the Vice President of the Poonakary Fishermans Co-op Society Union(PFSU).
It was in this climate in 2012 that theAustralian Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) began supporting the revitalisation of fishing livelihoods in the North through ILO’s Local Empowerment through Economic Development (LEED) Project.
LEED’s support to PFSU to establish a boatyard in Poonakary, with local youth trained and mentored by a leading private sector company, paved the way to provide local fishermen with boats at a lower cost and a reduced lead-time. But, with fisheries viewed as a traditionally male dominated industry, what little opportunity was available in this sector was closed off to women. This was also the case for Arulnesan Jeyarani until interventions by the project put her on a different path.
Commenting on her involvement in the sector, Jeyarani says, “because of the conflict there were a large number of women headed households. I too lost my husband during the war, and was struggling without a steady income to look after my children, when I received a boat from the PFSU boatyard and fishing equipment. I initially had relatives engaging in fishing for me.”
“When I received the boat, little did I know that I was setting sail into unknown waters. At that point, men dominated the Co-op, but with the support of the project, nearly 50 women became members.Now, I am a board member of PFSU and have held this position since 2017. My son currently handles the fishing operations, I focus most of my time and energy on raising my voice for the women in this sector,” says Jeyarani with pride.
Irranaimathanagr is one of the 90 plus villages that belongs to the Poonakary Divisional Secretariat. For many of its residents, much like the rest of the region, restarting fisheries was tough. A partnership facilitated between the Fishermen’s Cooperative Society of Irranaimathanagar (FCSI) and Taprobane Sea Foods (Pvt) Ltd helped change this.
John Kennedy, President of the FCSI describes their journey. “When we started fishing after the war there were som any challenges. Now we have grown to 385 members, we sell 400 kg of blue crabs per day purchased from not only our Co-op members but also other Co-ops, and are a supply agent to Taprobane. With the steady income, we were able to get a loan from the company to settle our members’ debts, start a compulsory saving scheme, rebuild our community - through the savings we provide scholarships, financial support for persons with disabilities.”
Another vital aspect of this partnership was the establishment of a seafood-processing factory in the area, providing much needed employment to women. Rasaturai Suthrsini has been with the factory since its inception. “We get a bonus on top of our salary based on the amount of crabmeat we process, the flexible working hours means no conflicts with any care responsibilities, and transport is provided so we have no difficulty in commuting safely. My salary has grown by three-fold from when I started. I was even promoted to a sectional supervisor temporarily.”
This successful model has since been replicated by other cooperatives in Poonakary, with assistance from the project. At present there are five primary processing plants for blue swimmer crab established under similar agreements. These have created over 1000 jobs for women, seen over 200 million Rupees paid as salaries, and helped reach an optimum price for blue swimmer crab.
With the rapid expansion of productive fishing activity in the area came a new threat – overfishing. Intervening at policy level, the project supported cooperatives to play a more active role in tackling this, including through advocacy to ban the destructive practice of bottom trawling, and participation in formulation and implementation of the government’s blue swimming crab fishery improvement project (FIP). As a result, in 2019 two blue swimmer crab fisheries in the north received a ‘GoodAlternative’ rating, becoming the first in Sri Lanka and in South and SouthEast Asia to be recommended by Seafood Watch.
Today the Poonakary fisheries community is thriving, and so is the northern regions’ blue swimmer crab industry. Investments and support extended by DFAT for over a decade have been vital in achieving this transformation. Supported by DFAT and the Government of Norway, in its second phase the project is exploring sustainable sea cucumber farming towards local empowerment through economic development, and has already achieved significant results.
