Oceanswell’s new report, titled “The impacts of Covid-19 lockdowns on coastal fisheries in Sri Lanka”, co-authored by Nadiya Azmy, Arpana Giritharan, Hafsa Jamel, Dr. Sangeeta Mangubhai, and Asha de Vos, is now available online.
Since the implementation of the first islandwide lockdown on 20 March 2020, Sri Lanka went through lockdowns and restrictions of varying nature in response to the rise in Covid-19 cases.
Oceanswell set out on this project to understand how local small-scale fisheries around the island adapted and coped with these restrictions. Speaking to Brunch, marine biologist, ocean educator, and Oceanswell Founder/Executive Director Asha de Vos commented that they are thrilled to finally publish their report with the findings from this socioeconomic study.
The impact on our coasts
With a dense population of 21 million and a coastline spanning 1,340 km, Sri Lankan fishing communities are both geographically and culturally diverse. Taking this into consideration, Oceanswell set the ambitious goal of conducting 400 surveys from across the island in a period of one month in an attempt to capture as much of this variation as possible.
Elaborating on why they chose to focus on the topic of the impact on fisheries, de Vos commented: “Our work at Oceanswell focuses on marine conservation, but we recognise that 90% of conservation is about managing humans. In our case, those who depend on the ocean for their livelihoods. If we don’t consider them, their needs, or why they do what they do, we can never protect our ocean.”
She added that as soon as the pandemic hit and the first lockdown came into place, she realised that coastal fisheries across Sri Lanka would be impacted, but she really felt the need to understand what that impact would look like and how we could learn from what we were experiencing to better prepare us for the future. Ultimately, she explained, they wanted to ensure that their science was foolproof and the outputs would be of benefit to Sri Lanka.
Explaining further on the topic, de Vos commented that they found inaccessibility to the ocean, and thereby fishing, disrupted the fisheries value chain. As a result, small-scale fisheries were negatively impacted due to very limited coping mechanisms and the lack of alternative income.
Considering these findings, they believe the implementation of appropriate protocols is paramount to minimise the negative impacts of future shocks that may disrupt the value chains. Oceanswell made it known that this work would not have been possible without generous funding from the Marine Conservation Action Fund (MCAF) of the New England Aquarium (NEAQ) as well as the hard work of Jegatheeswary Ehamparam Gunasingham and their research assistants – Kaushalya Balasooriya, Dilini Gamage, Manuja Hendawitharana, Iflal Ilyas, Thamiliny Kaneshalingam, Mohammed Mujas, Kajanthini Rajanalendran, Shalanka Ranjula, Rifdha Riswan, Antony Santhosh, Saranya Sinnathurai, Sathiavakeesparan Sivanthan, Abilagini Vickraman, and Muththulingam Yuhinthan.
Speaking to Brunch, co-author of the report, Oceanswell Programme Officer Nadiya Azmy explained that once the lockdowns were implemented, stories of how the lockdown was impacting daily wage earners and small businesses spread across the island, which led to the question of the impact on local fishing communities. “These communities are a key part of the work we do at Oceanswell. No sooner was the curfew lifted, we got to work designing and launching a study to understand the effects of the pandemic, specifically the curfew on fishers, fish processors, and fish sellers/traders.”
De Vos explained that Oceanswell’s mission is to nurture the next generation of diverse ocean heroes with a strong focus on growing the field in Sri Lanka. “Because of this, over the years we have invested a lot of time and energy into building a community of people across the country from all ages and backgrounds who share our love and passion for the ocean,” she stated.
Researching amidst a pandemic
Conducting any research during a global pandemic is not an easy task, but at Oceanswell, empowering and training the next generation of marine conservationists is of utmost important to them, and the opportunity to work with 14 incredible researchers from across all our coastlines was key to their success.
Giving us an insight into how the research was conducted during these trying times, Azmy added: “The research started off as a blueprint that led to designing and disseminating our surveys, and finally, data analysis and report writing. The researchers had pre-existing contacts within the fisheries communities that helped us move forward. From our end, we ensured that the researchers were trained in all necessary skills to ensure their technical capacity was enhanced throughout the project.”
Since safety is key, they also ensured they followed all the World Health Organisation (WHO) safety guidelines while in the field.
Adding to this sentiment, de Vos explained that as soon as the first lockdown ended and it was safe for them to start the project, they began recruiting research assistants of their selection, which de Vos added was made easier because of all their years of community building. “Individuals from across the island were excited to participate and support the project because they understood its value and wanted to contribute. Beyond that, we also provided them training in social science and other necessary skills because in the end, we want them to continue to grow as marine scientists into the future.”
Working with individuals who already had connections and had built trust within these fishing communities meant everyone at Oceanswell was able to conduct 415 surveys across 13 districts along all four coastlines in one month.
The end goal of the report, Azmy stated, is to really understand how the coastal communities – some that they work so closely with – were impacted due to the pandemic. Concluding, she added: “We also believe that research of this nature is crucial to be able to adequately support vulnerable communities whilst understanding what measures are expected to cope with future situations similar to this.”
They hope that the findings of this research can be used to create preparedness strategies to face future events and implement mechanisms that would reduce the negative impacts on these communities.
The report is freely available on their website at www.oceanswell.org and they encourage everyone to have a read so that we can better understand how to help the most vulnerable communities of our society in future.
