Alternative resilient livelihood option for fisher-folks tsunami victims

Cage 5 17.14 12,855.00
58,762.50
For five cages 24,312.50
For one cage 4,862.50
After 6-7 month of culture fish reach 500-600 gms each. Also nearly 15 kg fish can be harvested
from each cage which was sold at 750/= per kilo. Cages and fries were supplied by CIDA therefore
no expenditure for fisher folks. At off season though the harvests lessen the dried fish fetch a high
price in the market thus the economic trend remains same. In Sri Lanka most lagoons are short and
seasonal and do not support sustainable fisheries. The best way of overcome this resistance to this
innovation is to introduce Milk fish farming gradually, while ensuring that the methods employed
were those most certain to achieve positive economic results. If more fish can thus be made
available for food, and additional income can be derived too. There are abundant shrimp ponds in
the coastal belt of Batticaloa. These ponds also can be utilized for milk fish farming in a productive
manner with least cost and also prawn farms or swamps and marshlands can be developed into
brackish water productive milkfish ponds. It was characteristic of milkfish that given unfavorable
living conditions such as crowding, insufficient food, low water temperature, or low pH, etc., their
growth would be slow or non-existent. However, when given good living conditions, the fish would
grow faster than their normal growth rate even after having been subjected to those previous
unfavourable conditions. This process is called “stunting” (Castanos, 1995).
Biodiversity was impacted in several ways by illegal fishing practices including used undersize
mesh net, dynamite fishing, light fishing while shrimp farming practices including destruction of
mangrove swamps and pollution of natural water bodies and also our farming site was one of the
most environmentally stressed coastal area of the Batticaloa district by both the Tsunami disaster of
December 2004 and the destruction of ecologically sensitive (Mangroves) area due to unplanned
developmental activities following Tsunami (Santharooban and Vinobaba, 2007). These activities
severely impact on milk fish. Above mention activity will pave the path to the loss of important
spawning and nursery grounds of milk fish and affects local fisheries resulting in reduced yields for
local fishermen. On the other hand destruction of mangroves negatively impacts the milk fish
population because of them spend a portion of their lifecycle in mangrove forests.
3.1 Conclusion
This is an environment friendly alternative resilient livelihood option with reasonable income.
Initial results were promising the farming will take up on a commercial scale.