The community leaders from 20 fishing villages from Verugal in the north of Trincomalee up to Muththur in the South of Trincomalee today raised the concerns of arrival of SeaPlanes to Trincomalee. Herman Kumara, Convener, NAFSO shared what are the main issues of SeaPlane struggle in the contextrelated to tourism master plans in Regaining Sri Lanka as well as Mahibda Chinthanaya and Mahinda Chinthana Way Forward.
Top of that there are number of issues emerged in the dialogue.
* Destructive Fishing gears and over explkitation of aquatic resources
* Women and Lack of visibility of them in fisheries
* Tourism and Land issues in Trincomalee
* Southern Fishers migration to eastern province fishing villages
* Exploitation of women labour
* Disturbances to fisher people by military activities
* Marketing issues for small fishers products
Once the social, economic, environmental and political issues related to SeaPlane project was presented there were 10 participants had enthusiastically volunteered to form a core team to work collectively.
Darshanie who claimed to be a volunteer activist in fisheries sector shared her experienced with women fishers.
"Women in fisheries work hand in hand with men to earn their daily living in the family. However they are not visible and not as important players in the family economy. There should be a mechanism to bring the women in to mainstream in development. Our role is to unite the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities to face the difficulties of men and women in the fisheries sector. "
Subashinee Deepa, the coordinator of Sri Vimukthi Fisher Women organization shared her experience the Alliance of Protection of Negombo Lagoon at the SeaPlane struggle.
"We adopted TACT process in the lagoon SeaPlane struggle. It is Togetherness, Awareness, Campaign and Training. This was much effective the Trincomalee people could use too. We proved that we could win struggles without shedding blood.".
The formed 10 member core team which will be convened by Darshanie will meet on 27th at the same venue.
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