“Give a Man a Fish, Feed Him for a Day; Support a Fishing Community to Defend its Rights; Change the World”
Stories of WhyHunger Ally the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO), and Fishing Communities in Sri Lanka.
This is the 1st in a 3-part series of articles on NAFSO and the communities whose rights it defends.
Part 1: Resilience, the Struggle for Human Rights, and a Decade of Hardship
But Sri Lanka’s policies have made it and continue to make it impossible for fishers in Sri Lanka to survive and feed their families.
In 2004, thousands of fishing boats along
the southern coast of Sri Lanka were destroyed in the tsunami, along
with homes, nets, and the lives of too many fishermen. Communities in
southern Sri Lanka are still rebuilding from the tsunami almost a decade
later, but support from the government that was promised for new boats,
new nets, and rebuilt homes was either too little or it never came.
Widows with children were impacted worst of all, because they had little
or no way to support their families once they lost their husbands.
When the 30-year civil war ended in 2009,
fishing communities in the north had their lands taken by the military.
They were forbidden from fishing, because the military said they were a
security risk, and they watched as foreign fishing boats fished in their
waters and tourist hotels sprouted on their beaches while their
families went hungry.
Then, in 2012, the government raised the
price of fuel by 30%, a sudden price hike that fishermen all over the
country could simply not afford. There was no way for them to fish when
their fuel costs were that high, meaning that they had no way to feed
their families or earn a living.
Communities Taking Action
So in June, women in fishing communities led a four day hunger strike continuing to protest the rise of the price of fuel . And in October, fishermen in the north of the country submitted to a petition to the government
to stop Indian boats from fishing illegally in Sri Lankan waters and
damaging the ocean floor with their “bottom-trawling” gear, while
fishermen in the south of the country demonstrated in front of the
Fisheries Ministry to protest Chinese trawlers that are also fishing illegally in Sri Lankan waters and destroying fishing grounds with their bottom trawling.
And on October 10th, thousands of farming and fishing families launched a week-long, 400-mile march and “Awareness Caravan” across the island nation of Sri Lanka, to protest the new “Seed Act.” The caravan culminated on October 16th, World Food Day, in a march of thousands of farmers and fishers carrying banners and signs
and featuring an altar displaying traditional Sri Lankan seeds and
food. This proposed seed law would privatize seeds and outlaw
seed-saving. According to the fishing and farming families who rely on
traditional seeds, the law would criminalize their livelihoods and pave
the way for increased land-grabbing, pollution and poverty by industrial
agribusiness.
Human Rights and Food Sovereignty
These actions and demonstrations were supported by the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO), a national network of fishers’ organizations in Sri Lanka that works for food sovereignty and the right to food and against the damaging policies of “development” that hurt small-scale food producers the most, including farmers and farmworkers.
NAFSO also provides direct support to
communities, what they call “survival programs,” like small boats for
fishermen and seeds and tools for families to start small, sustainable
food gardens. NAFSO also provides widows with basic supports like
chicken coops and baby chicks to provide healthy food to their kids and
earn a living. NAFSO also provides support to community leaders in the
fisher organizations. They provided training and support in organizing
to the families of the town of Negombo to stop a government plan to
build large seaplane dock, meant as a transportation hub for tourists,
right in the middle of the lagoon the community relied on for fish.
NAFSO helped them to organize support from religious leaders and local
politicians, and with NAFSO’s support, the leaders from the community stopped the project and saved the fishery. WhyHunger is proud to support NAFSO and to be in solidarity with the social movements of fishers and farmers of Sri Lanka.
But direct support to communities and even
protests and demonstrations against unjust and destructive policies and
projects cannot solve the problems that food producers face in Sri
Lanka. Fishing families face hunger and poverty because the model of
“development” does not value small food producers. The real solution is
creating and advancing a new paradigm of development, centered in the
human rights of food producers living off the land and the sea.
Advancing this paradigm of food sovereignty
is why NAFSO has spent over a decade working on a global policy
for small-scale fisheries at the United Nations. Through the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP),
NAFSO was able to pass the Guidelines on Small-Scale Fisheries (VGSSF),
which gives new human rights protections to small fishing communities
that have never existed: small-scale fisheries are recognized as being critical to ensuring food security and governments are recognized as having a responsibility to protect them.
NAFSO recently translated these Guidelines into Tamil and Sinhala (the two languages used in Sri Lanka) and traveled to different communities in Sri Lanka,
training over 150 leaders in these new rights. Even though these
Guidelines are “voluntary,” social movements like NAFSO are using them
to push their governments toward food sovereignty. NAFSO’s work, and
human rights instruments like these Guidelines, prioritize small-scale
food production over profits, and the rights of the most vulnerable over
the profits of the most powerful. Only transforming our priorities to
recognize the rights of small-scale food producers, not charity or
welfare, can end hunger and poverty.
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