Six months after the disaster, the Japanese government produced a broad proposal for reconstructing livelihoods in the Tohoku region, calling for starting new businesses such as renewable energy; rebuilding a more efficient fishing industry by introducing fishermen and women to companies with technical knowledge and by creating new zones where private companies could be granted fishing rights previously controlled by fishing cooperatives; and by establishing special zones in affected prefectures where enterprise and job creation will be encouraged by tax policies and streamlined administration. So, the proposed plans aim to revitalize the region with new industries as well as by expanding old ones. How much have they helped the people who are trying to revitalize their livelihoods in the year gone by? We will take a brief look at the fisheries, agriculture, and business sectors to find out.
Prior to the disaster, says Japan’s Agriculture Ministry, the region supplied between 40 and 50 percent of Japan’s total fishing and aquaculture products. [1] But as reported by NHK, the Fisheries Agency’s data shows that with the destruction of breakwaters and other facilities, the tsunami destroyed about 300 ports and about 28,000 boats. The sea, in fact, pretty much erased the infrastructure for catching, processing, and transporting sea food, costing the sector estimated damages of more than $15b. NHK reports that the government invested $10 b. to revive the industry, but that a year after the tsunami, catches in major ports are about half of what they were a year before. [2]
Several factors can be attributed to the fall in fish production. As we already know, some fishermen have moved out of the region in search of new jobs. Many have taken part-time work in reconstruction, which, though temporary, pays more. Some fishermen pooled their resources to buy boats in partnership with others and went back to work, which means now there are less boats going out. Some are still struggling to resume work because despite government’s involvement, the infrastructure is yet to be repaired. NHK aired a story, for example, of a couple in their seventies in Minamisanriku who are toiling daily to help clear a small cove of debris to reestablish their aquaculture business of scallops and seaweed. It had not been a profitable business. The returns were so meager their son could not join them and he operated a tourist boat for a hotel that was also destroyed. But it is impossible for the elderly couple to work in construction, or to retire because their pensions are insufficient for their subsistence, and neither they nor their son have sufficient savings.
So, the industry needs all the help it can get, but according to one reporter, the traditional fisher communities strongly oppose proposals to grant fishing rights to private companies. In Miyagi Prefecture, where the government and local unions have made long-term loans for rebuilding available to the fisheries sector, the local union administering the production and much of the prefecture’s sales of the sea food wants the damages inflicted by the tsunami repaired before rebuilding begins. But repairing is probably no easier than rebuilding. The shift in earth’s plate that caused the magnitude 9.0 earthquake reduced the height of land along the northeast coast. With more than a meter lost in some places, harbors and towns are even more vulnerable to future tsunamis and typhoons. [3] Thus, it seems, in this case, Tohoku region’s particular cultural history and geological changes that resulted from the earthquake are also adding to the complexity of challenges in rebuilding livelihoods in this sector, which, together with agriculture and tourism, formed the backbone of the area’s economy.
Still, this does not mean that people are averse to change. The tsunami also inundated some 20,500 hectares of rice paddies and fields in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures, and the sludge and salt have left them unusable. The Agriculture Ministry estimates it can restore only about 20 percent of the lands by next spring; full restoration is expected to take about three years. [4] In the meantime, farmers themselves as well as people from other regions are looking for ways to get back to work and some of the solutions they have found are quite innovative, and show that they will embrace change if they prove to be beneficial.
An example comes from Sendai in the south, where Professor Miyazawa says the tsunami left a third of the farmland salt logged, most of which is located on low coastal lands like in other areas. Along with increased salinity (almost 10 times the standard level in Sendai,) the breakdown of agricultural facilities including draining facilities, and the rubble and mud have made farmland unusable. [5] But NHK shows how, with help from a friend and a major restaurant chain based in Tokyo that serves Italian food, one farmer in Sendai has transformed his lettuce farm into growing tomatoes. The broadcaster says others have followed. How has this achievement come about? The tomatoes are grown not on the ground but in green houses, with the aid of nutrient rich hydroponic plant. The restaurant’s 900 eateries around the country provide a ready market, and the company, which runs a farm where it develops new strains of tomatoes, has helped the farmers to start up the new industry. The farmers are now looking forward to selling the first crop in April, 2012, and by adjusting the temperature in the green houses, will grow three times more tomatoes than if they were planted outdoors. [6]
Besides the tsunami, soil contaminated by radioactive material also brought farming to a halt. NHK also showed how, instead of waiting for the government to act, resourceful rice farmers in Fukushima Province are conducting their own experiments to reduce the cesium level in the soil with help from researchers. [7]
Another wonderful example from Miyagi Prefecture shows that adversity, whether it comes from nature or humans, will not dampen the resilient spirit of many people in the Tohoku region. As we know, the region has strong local loyalties. Worried about the rate of migration to other areas, and feeling the place might cease to exist unless something was done to make it habitable again, a man named Miyura, who lost his home and two fish stores, two factories, and a fish processing plant, started a drive to restore commercial and civic life. What he envisioned was a shopping arcade, including a space where people could gather to talk and relax. “I felt nobody would come if only one store reopened. But if we concentrated our businesses, that would start the cycle of economic life in town, even if the scale was small,” he said.
His enthusiasm brought together fifty former store owners; but most faced formidable financial challenges. Mura himself had got into more than a million dollars in debt a year before the disaster in efforts to remodel a store. He was not the only one short of capital but some luck seemed to be coming their way. In September, the group succeeded in getting rent-free buildings through a national program. They next targeted two programs introduced by the central and national governments that would provide three quarters of the operating capital to businesses. But their luck was short lived. In December, both applications were rejected by officials because “A temporary shopping arcade that will eventually be torn down would not lead to the redevelopment of the town.”
The Disaster Safety and Recovery expert says that inflexibility on the part of the government is counterproductive when people affected by disasters are showing their willingness to move forward. As he points out, providing temporary sites where people can live and do business will give them time to ready themselves to return to a predisaster mode of existence. In fact, he says, “It’s a mistake to think of these sites as just temporary. It’s really the foundation of the town as residents are going to ultimately build.”
The government’s rejection was counterproductive to progress indeed. Following the letters, some people backed out of the proposed project. But says Miyura, for himself and 29 others, “Bailing out was just not an option. We talked it over and talked it over, and made up our minds. Everyone became very determined to see this through.” And with consultants advising them about the cost of rebuilding and the prospect for repayment, most doubled their loans – getting into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt – and went ahead with the plan. And their resourcefulness touched the hearts of people around the country. They began donating equipment such as freezers and air conditioners and a year after the disaster, the new temporary shopping arcade with 30 stores, located right across from a cluster of temporary shelters, opened for business.
But more huge challenges lie ahead for the group. Among the biggest is that the government limits the use of temporary buildings to five years and they must acquire permanent quarters within that time. In the meantime, a promenade in front of the arcade provides a place for shoppers to relax and talk to one another, each conversation rebuilding and strengthening community ties.
***
In Sri Lanka, it was estimated that island wide, 150,000 people lost their livelihoods. [8] 50 percent of the losses were in the fisheries sector; 45 percent in tourism related services, small business and trading, public sector and self-employment; and the remaining 4-5 percent in agriculture. Efforts to rebuild livelihoods involved eight ministries and some 100 national and international organizations and TAFREN was tasked with the overall coordination.
In March 2006, to evaluate the livelihood rebuilding situation in Habaraduwa Division, the DS brought together representatives from RADA, the ILO, representatives from most NGOs and INGOs active in the division, and local government officials for a workshop on “Rebuilding Livelihoods.” I too was invited to the workshop, the aims of which were: To reduce or eliminate overlaps and duplication in livelihood assistance in Habaraduwa Division; To bridge the gaps between various employment sectors resulting from unequal delivery of aid; To explore ways to accelerate the process of rebuilding sustainable jobs and livelihoods; To move people out of poverty and to rid them of the post-tsunami dependency mentality.
Brief overviews of livelihood assistance provided by NGOs/INGOs active in the division confirmed that: Some economic sectors received more help than others; Some geographical areas received more help than others; Inland areas that suffered damage when rivers and canals overflowed had mostly been overlooked; and unequal aid distribution among beneficiaries was widespread.
With nearly 170,000 boats and millions of nets lost or damaged, [9] and with fisheries harbors, landing sites, ice storages, and boat yards also badly damaged, the fisheries sector was the biggest casualty of the disaster. But compared to Japan, Sri Lankan fisheries were in a much better state; the country lost much less land area to the tsunami and the country attracted a huge amount of aid to rebuild livelihoods, with the bulk going to the fisheries sector. In fact, Steve Creech, a Consultant in Fisheries, refers to project interventions and activities implemented in fishing communities in the east and in Hambantota under the emergency relief phase of the recovery effort, as an “avalanche.” [10] Besides donations of money, the fishing communities received boats, nets, engines for boats, and other items on free/grant based distribution schemes from individuals, groups, or various organizations. When I met RADA’s Chief Operations Officer a year after the tsunami, however, he said that fish production had reached only 60 percent of its pre-disaster annual production level, estimated to be 300,000 metric tonnes. [11]
Why then did the industry lag behind in Sri Lanka, when it received the lion share of the aid? And how well had other industries and businesses done in the first year after the tsunami? Using the Guiding Principles as the analytical framework, I will first explore how and why the impact of the “avalanche” of aid failed to build back the fisheries sector, and then go on to look at rebuilding efforts of the coconut fiber products, tourist, and other industries and other businesses in my research site.
To find out why the fishing industry had not recovered when it received the lion share of aid, I spoke with three groups of fishermen in the Galle district. The first group works out of a big fisheries harbor located next to the naval harbor near the Galle city center. The second group launches their boats out of the cove mentioned in Chapter five. Both catch fish for consumption. The third group I spoke with was the three fishermen who catch ornamental fish and took me and my companions out to sea.
Before the tsunami, the fisheries sector generally operated not as a cohesive unit, but through private associations, NGOs, an authoritative body established by the government, and ad-hoc village cooperatives. The men at the harbor and the cove I spoke with, for instance, belonged to the Fishermen’s Association of Galle district. Made up of 54 sub groups, its membership is about 2,000 members. The three men who catch ornamental fish, on the other hand, said they do not belong to any organization. So there was no single system that documented data on the number of boats, active fishermen, production capacities, or markets.
As mentioned before, the fisheries sector is made up of heterogeneous groups. But Creech notes, and the media showed, that the vast majority of donations to the sector consisted of boats. Some donors gave directly to individuals, but some consulted Community Based Organizations (CBOs,) politicians, or local government officials to coordinate their donations with government efforts.
“So, why has the industry not recaptured its pre-tsunami production level?” I asked the men at the harbor. “Because,” said their spokesman, “fishermen go out in several types of boats. The multi-day trawlers fish in the deep seas over several days. The 28 foot boats go out about ten miles and people can fish for several hours. The sea-going 19 foot boats and the lagoon-going 18 foot canoes can go out only about three miles and must return in a shorter period of time. Most donors gave the smallest crafts or engines for near-shore fishing which may bring perhaps 100 kilos of fish, compared to the 1,500 kilograms of fish that a multi day boat brings back. So, how can fish production return to the pre-tsunami level?”
His claim was substantiated by the Narma Fiber Industries, a boat yard located in Batticaloa, in the East. The company website stated that since the tsunami, they had received orders for 400 lagoon canoes and 600 sea-going canoes – a much higher quantity than normal of the smallest type of vessels – despite a warning by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) not to supply too many small boats. The FAO asked that donors communicate and consult with officials of local government departments and the fisheries department to find out about providing aid to the fisheries sector and not rely only on advice given by boat yards, but my conversations with the fishermen showed donors had largely ignored the Subsidiarity Principle.
At the same time, the spokesman at the harbor indicated some donors had consulted him about their needs, but then they ignored his appeals. For instance, the Fisheries Sector of TAFREN reported that the Galle district lost 66 multi-day trawlers and that 106 were damaged and the spokesman at the harbor told me, “I appealed to various local and international donor organizations to give us multiday boats. The Japanese government donated some 28 ft. boats and the UNDP gave fuel and helped to repair broken structures, but nobody gave multi day boats. If donors didn’t believe me they could have found out our needs from the fisheries inspectors, the Fishermen’s Cooperative Societies (FCS), or the Fisheries Department. We are registered with the department and they have all the data about our losses, but they don’t seem to have done so.”
The men I spoke with firmly believed that this was because most donors did not have the fisher people’s interest at heart. As one man said, “NGO people sought to gain the most by giving the least.” Creech agrees. He says that so many gave small boats because they are locally available, and although boats are relatively expensive compared to equipment for other trades, smaller boats are significantly cheaper than large ones and their donation provided the groups with media opportunities and visual evidence to show their funders.
Not all donors had this problem; a substantial number of donations were given individually and they may not have known about the Guiding Principles. But my research also revealed other serious problems donors had created by overloading the sector with small crafts. Near-shore fish stocks were already in decline before the tsunami and near-shore fishermen are quite territorial. It is an unwritten rule that they do not encroach on each other’s territories. But now, the men said, with increased competition caused by an excess of small boats going out to sea, the marginal incomes of fishermen were greatly threatened and they predicted fights could break out among competitors.
Another problem created by an excess of the donation of the smallest boats was that in this trade people must work in groups, and more boat owners meant there may not be enough workmates. “It looks like we have no choice but to take our wives and children!” a man at the harbor joked. Some in the group laughed but others were not amused. One charged angrily that “What we feel is these NGOs and INGOs came here not to help, but to remove the deep-sea fishermen from the industry. If they really wanted to help they should have given multi-day boats. That’s how the country will prosper.” One of his mates agreed, and what he said next provided another answer to the question as to why the fisheries sector had not reached pre-tsunami production level. “We don’t know what they did with all that money,” the man said. “But since we are unable to go, fish that Sri Lanka was exporting are now being netted by fishermen from China, Taiwan, and other nations. There are about 100 foreign fishing boats in our waters – not in the international waters – doing as they please!”
Here, let me share briefly how their diminished incomes will worsen the family lives of fishermen. The day after the fishing trip (See Chapter One,) I went with our household help to visit Susith at his home. “Ah nona, come, come,” he invited us in, lowering his daughter, who was seated on his lap, to the ground. His eight-year-old son was seated at a table, doing his homework. His older brother, also a fisherman, was visiting as well and the two men willingly answered my questions about their livelihood. Neither owns a boat. Their daily earnings generally range from Rs. 300 to 4,000, but some days they come ashore empty handed. Even then, they must pay boat rental, cost of fuel and oxygen tanks, the tractor hire to transport the tanks, tips for the tractor driver, and the men help to push and pull the boat into and out of the sea. “So, let’s say I catch fish worth about 1000 rupees. I may end up with only about Rs. 400 in my pocket even if five of us go and we share the expenses. Night trips cost even more.” Susith said and added that if he owned a boat, he could spare some of those expenses. His brother said, “We can do this job only about five or six months in a year. We usually get a good harvest from December through March. April is also okay, but even in those months there may be a day here and there we cannot go because the sea is too rough.”
“So how do you manage the rest of the year?” I asked. In the off season Susith’s brother works as a life guard at a tourist hotel. Susith takes people around on a three-wheeler. But to make ends meet, he said, “We pawn my wife’s jewelry at the bank. That’s how we get the money to eat during the off season, but this year we have not been able to redeem her jewelry yet because after the tsunami the sea has been really volatile.”
His wife, Geetha, came up to me with a cup of steaming hot tea on a tray just then and I said to her, “Aiyo (Oh dear,) Geetha, what if you have to go to some function?” She simply smiled, but her husband said, “A thing like that happened a few days ago. We had to go to a wedding but she couldn’t dress up to fit the occasion so I went by myself.” Creech observes that in a study done in 1998 in seven coastal fishing communities in the Hambantota District, the irregular nature of household incomes generated by fishing, and indebtedness created by having neither personal savings nor access to formal credit institutions, emerged as the first priority issue among women.
Perhaps if the donors had been more knowledgeable about the workings of the fishing industry they may have communicated with local officials before rushing to help the sector. In fact, recognizing that many donors may not know much about the fishing industry, the FAO publicized the fact that livelihoods of fishermen do not start and end with receiving a boat and that other types of assistance is needed to rejuvenate the industry. For example, the organization reported that the Batticalao lagoon, a vast body of water in the East where people catch prawns, crabs, and various small types of fish, was mucked up with wood, trees, broken fishing craft and other debris and that help was needed to clear them because canoes are incapable of moving the debris out of the lagoon. They also asked that support be given to repair tsunami devastated roads in the east so the catch could be transported to Colombo, and also for support to market the product. [12] But I did not come across data that indicated these appeals had yielded favorable results.
Besides making near-shore fishing unsustainable, creating conditions for communal conflicts, enabling foreign fishermen to illegally fish in Sri Lankan waters, and not providing help as needed, FAO’s Naval Architect, Oyvind Gulbrabutdsen revealed another disastrous result of a lack of communication by donors with the officials. Some of the donated crafts, he said, “do not even contain the necessary polystyrene fills in the buoyancy compartments that stop a boat from sinking if water enters whilst at sea.” [13]
In addition to all of the above problems that came about because most donors did not adhere to the Guiding Principles, their failure to do so also enabled some people to exploit the disaster for their own gain, as happened with donor-driven house building projects. An elderly man sitting in his boat at the cove told me, “I come from Weligama (in the Matara district,) and over there corruption is the name of the game. To get a boat you have to bribe government officials or other aid officials.”
His partner quipped, “Even the Human Rights Group don’t give boats for free. You have to pay Rs. 75,000 to get a boat so only people with money get them.”
The older man laughed wryly. “That’s right. Before the tsunami, people looked down on us fisher folk for doing what they said is a lowly job. But now people who never stepped into the sea their whole lives are claiming this as their trade, and we, who went fishing all our lives, are being denied what is due to us because we can’t afford the bribes!” He also said that about 75 percent of the boats and other donated equipment have now been sold. I exclaimed that aid was not given so people could make money, but the man was surprised at my response. “Well nona, if people don’t fish for a living, what’s the point of getting boats and nets? If I got five boats, I’d also sell four because I need only one for work,” he said.
People at the harbor reiterated what the two men at the cove said and also explained it was easy for people to exploit the situation in this sector because unlike government donations, those given by NGOs and INGOs are not documented. Creech provides an interesting example from the other end of the spectrum. Most organizations donated fishing crafts and gear to the people free of charge. But an NGO created after the tsunami bought fishing crafts with the financial assistance they received and then, without any discussion with the FCS of beneficiary selection, leased the crafts to recipients who were bound contractually to pay fixed weekly installments. Ownership was transferred only when the total charge was paid.
Looking at the above situation one could say that the fisheries sector in effect became a reconstruction disaster in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. However, as mentioned, not all donors failed to follow the Guiding Principles. Kurier Aid Austria, for example partnered with the Ministry of Fisheries to open the CEY-NOR Boat Yard on the grounds of a destroyed elementary school in Unawatuna. I went there to find out if they were manufacturing any multi-day boats, which the fishermen told me must be produced in Sri Lanka to suite the particular marine conditions there.
The CEY-NOR boat yard was a temporary two-year project and there were about 50 boats in various stages of construction and repair in the yard. However, I went at lunch time and the place was deserted except for four office employees. They said the government recently approved funds for 64 multi-day boats, but that it was unlikely that the men would get any even in a year because they still had to fill a good number of previous orders, and it takes six or seven months to produce a multi day fishing vessel. Had the orders for multiday boats been placed soon after the tsunami, at least some men would have been out fishing before I returned for follow-up research.
But I am happy to say that by the time I left after my second research trip, Susith was eagerly anticipating delivery of his own 19 ft. boat on a 100 percent grant basis from a German donor who had coordinated his aid delivery efforts with the Member of Parliament in the area. But his brother was still looking for help to get back to work. The man is illiterate, having dropped out of school early in life due to the precarious economic situation of the family. Like their father, he became a cast-net fisherman but when he was in his late teens, a businessman gave him a pair of goggles and he started catching ornamental fish for the man. In those days, however, there were no oxygen tanks and his right ear drum burst by diving too deep. Consequently, he can no longer dive even with the oxygen tank because his ear becomes infected, so he has returned to cast net fishing. But living just by the sea, he lost his home and everything else, including his cast nets. He attended various meeting organized by TAFREN, he was yet to receive even one net because he said, “The TAFREN fellow responsible for rejuvenating the fisheries sector discriminates against some people, including myself. Only the other day I told him what I thought of him with some choice words!” Here is another example showing that officials themselves failed to help tsunami survivors equally.
His wife reiterated all this when I visited their home two days later. I was scheduled to meet the Livelihood Recovery Officer of the TAFREN office in Galle the following day and asked if I should bring the matter to his notice. “That would be a big help nona,” the husband said eagerly. “If I can get the nets, I can earn my living and build up our lives.”
When I met the TAFFREN official, he said that they had already set up Village Rehabilitation Committees made up of GNs, other village leaders, and members of the Samurdhi Welfare Program to find out those whose needs had been overlooked. He also told me about efforts to find new jobs for tsunami survivors in the private sector. Regarding the fisheries sector, the official said a few low-interest loan schemes had been initiated but that “Not everyone is keen to apply for loans; they want monetary grants or boats that were given to many others.” He also said TAFREN was documenting livelihood assistance given to the fisheries sector so they could redistribute the goods equitably among the genuine fisher folk. But to what extent they will succeed in this endeavor was highly questionable since it was unlikely that people would voluntarily return any goods if they had not already sold them. I supplied him with Susith’ brother’s contact information and the official promised to provide him the nets.
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At the Livelihood Workshop it turned out that people engaged in coir-based products in the Habaraduwa Division had also received a great deal of help. But unlike the fisheries sector, the aid given to the coir industry in Habaraduwa had not just helped it to bounce back, the industry was also looking ahead to new markets. How did this happen?
The manufacturing of coir-based goods is a traditional cottage industry in the south and as shown in Pandu’s story, like the fisheries sector, it too is made up of a chain of workers. At the workshop it turned out that in the Habaraduwa Division, this sector was rejuvenated primarily by Sewa Lanka, one of Sri Lanka’s largest NGOs, and that they helped every unit in the chain – from cleaning the pits in which coconut husks are steeped, to providing coir, to repairing damaged machines or supplying new ones, all the way to negotiating with the local Hayles Company to set up new sales avenues for the people to sell their products. And a year after the disaster, all 366 families in eight villages in the Habaraduwa Division who did coir work were busy. “We don’t think there is anything more to be done regarding the Coir Industry in these villages. The people we helped are already getting good returns” said the Sewa Lanka representative at the workshop.
So, was it any surprise that Pandu was all smiles when I visited him the next morning? Sewa Lanka had provided him two new coconut fiber processing machines and men and women were busy cleaning husks and weaving rope. The NGO had also provided new motors for Pandu’s old machines and the water pump that the tsunami killed, and machines for the women who weave rope at their homes. With everyone was back at work, Pandu had begun to pay back the loan he obtained from his friend. “So, your worries are over now?” I asked him. “Yes! Because unlike other NGOs who gave something and disappeared, Sewa Lanka remains committed to helping us in the future also. They are here to make sure we will continue to make progress,” Pandu said contentedly.
While the situation for this industry was rosy in the Habaraduwa Division, it did not mean coir workers everywhere had received help equally. Monks in Kamburugamuwa village temple in the Matara district, for example, said of the eight families for whom they built homes, only a fish seller who received a bicycle from a donor had resumed work. The rest of the home recipients and others who did coir work, including two families who received rope-weaving machines, were still unemployed. Why? Because the tsunami destroyed the pits located on the beach in which people steep coconut husks and the CCD prohibited digging new ones. The inland pits where people had died were yet to be cleaned by owners and villagers were reluctant to climb into them until then. Since coconut husks must be processed to supply the raw material for the rest of the workers in the industry, this particular livelihood in this village and probably in many others, was at a standstill more than a year after the tsunami.
Why was Sewa Lanka so successful in turning the coir-based industry around in the Habaraduwa Division? To begin with, unlike so many NGOs and INGOs who rushed to help the fisheries sector without any knowledge about the workings of it, Sewa Lanka’s birth place is Galle, and it was active in the Galle district even before the tsunami. Therefore, they knew government officials well which enhanced communication and consultation between the two groups, were knowledgeable about the sector and the people’s needs, and of course had no language barrier. Their awareness of the production process as well as continuous communication and consultation with the whole chain of workers showed them that unless they helped each unit in the value chain equitably, the industry would not be able to sustain itself. And they made the best use of new opportunities the disaster presented for expansion and growth of the industry by linking the workers to new markets.
Sewa Lanka had been quite resourceful in finding ways and means to help other tsunami victims too. Unlike so many NGOs and INGOs who worked independently and competitively as Janz and Vaux observe, this organization adopted an inclusive policy and built partnerships with several INGOs to boost their resources. It partnered with US Aid to rejuvenate the coir industry, with Red Cross and World Vision to provide drinking water to affected areas, and with Concern Organization on other relief and development activities. Sewa Lanka thereby increased their capacity to address the people’s needs far more effectively than had they worked on their own, and had a remarkable success story to present at the Workshop.
***
While the fisheries sector had received a glut of aid, the tourist sector, the other big industry in the south, had received hardly any. It was estimated that about 18,000 jobs in this sector were lost. But compared to the two industries above, after the buffer zone plan was defeated, the tourist sector received far less attention from aid givers. The reason, said the ILO representative at the Work Shop, was that the Tourist Board did not have a complete picture of the whole network of businesses and people sustaining the tourist industry. These include hotel, resort, and guesthouse employees, families in private homes who take in guests and even rented rooms on an hourly basis, food suppliers, those who produce and/or sell curios, jewelry, and other artifacts, entertainers and three wheel drivers, individuals who supply herbs for the huge Ayurvedic medical tourist industry that is so popular in the south, and various others.
Since the Tourist Board did not have a cohesive picture of the workforce, they and the ILO spent a good part of the year after the tsunami collecting data on the tourist industry. Their progress was slow, for even though some hotel operators belonged to local organizations, the industry as a whole had no umbrella organization that included the various groups. The lack of data not only complicated recovery work, it also made it problematic for the people to obtain special loans set up for tsunami victims that I describe below. So, while the Fisheries Sector received support from the Ministry of Fisheries who consistently worked with the FSCs, the Small Enterprises and Commerce Sector received support from The Federation of Commerce and the Industrial development Board, and the Agriculture Sector was assisted by the FAO, there was no formal institutional body helping the tourist sector. Let us now take a look at a few individuals who lost their livelihoods and whose voices we heard in previous chapters.
To help rebuild livelihoods the government set up two concessionary loan schemes specifically for micro, small, and medium scale entrepreneurs. By February of 2006, $19.4 million had been disbursed to 4,154 recipients under the Central Bank’s Suhasana loan scheme. This operated through participating financial institutions which included all licensed specialized banks, licensed commercial banks, registered leasing companies, and registered finance companies recognized by the Central Bank.
The second scheme, the National Development Trust Fund (NDTF) Scheme, was aimed exclusively at micro entrepreneurs. Working with partner organizations island-wide, NDTF had disbursed $1.36 million to 37 partner organizations, of which $ 0.7 million had been provided to 2070 borrowers. But Amal, who lost his furniture business, had not yet succeeded in obtaining a loan. Before the buffer zone was relaxed, affected business men within the zone such as Amal, had found it difficult to obtain loans because banks were reluctant to relax their collateral requirements. Now Amal’s problem was personal: his beach front property was tied up in litigation and no bank would accept it as collateral.
But like Miyura and his business group, Amal and Suneetha had received help from other sources. They were now living in an old two-room building belonging to Suneetha’s brother. Using a tiny space at the back of one room as living space, the couple had set up shop in the rest of the building selling mattresses, plastic chairs, and plastic tables. They bought a part of the stock with private loans; the rest they obtained on a long-term payment scheme from companies with whom they did business before the tsunami. Their business should have thrived because many donors provided furniture to tsunami victims. But Amal’s new store, hidden about 150 meters inside the village, attracted none of these customers. He was convinced the only way to make the business viable was by moving the business back to the old location by the main road, but he could not get a bank loan.
With house building in full swing on the other hand, the group of carpenters I wrote about in Chapter Four had been quite busy in the first year after the disaster. The demand in this area was so high that in 2006, the Ministry of Skills Development and Vocational and Technical Education announced the availability of a large number of trained masons, carpenters, plumbers and electricians for construction sites, and that special short-term training was being provided to many more people to fill the needs. [14]
Thus the post-tsunami housing boom provided job opportunities to many people, but the woman who quit work to take her children to school I met the previous year was still unemployed. On this follow-up research trip, a family in Cincinati gave me a donation to help tsunami victims and after interviewing the woman a second time with my land lady, I bought her a sewing machine with part of that money so she could start a home-based sewing business.
When I met Ananda who lost his organic farm soon after the tsunami, he had asked if I could obtain help from the US to rid his farm of the salination. I thought it would be easy because Ananda did not ask for monetary assistance. He requested only technological know-how to detoxify and desalinate the soil and was even willing to provide free board and lodging to anyone who would go to Sri Lanka and help him out. When I returned to the US I contacted several individuals and a couple of businesses engaged in organic farming. Everyone promised to help, but none came through. Finally, I called the International Programs of the University of California in Davis and was put in touch with Mark Bell, a Research Associate of the program. Dr. Bell, it turned out, had co-authored a document about the rebuilding of rice fields on the Sri Lanka site of the Knowledge Bank. He wrote to me that the desalination process involved flooding the fields through rainfall or irrigation, and then draining the salt contaminated water.
I called Ananda that night and also emailed the link to Dr. Bell’s article. A few months later, he called back in relief. The monsoon rains had been quite heavy he said, and thought the rains and the culverts he dug must have reduced the salt substantially because a few plants that do not grow in salinated soil had sprouted on his farm. When I visited Ananda and his mother in 2007, the one hundred banana trees he had planted were doing well and he was looking forward to making his organic farm productive again.
We have seen in this chapter and the last that the Guiding Principles, through crafted with good intentions, had not yielded the desired results in the reconstruction of homes and livelihoods for a variety of reasons. Still, they provided a useful analytical framework to look at post-tsunami Sri Lanka at the macro level. But it is not possible to gain an understanding about how individuals are rebuilding their lives, about their attempts to recapture meaning and go on with their lives using the above Principles. Therefore, in Chapter Eight, I return to psychology and Buddhism as analytical tools to explore how several survivors who suffered some of the most heartbreaking losses have been coping with the trauma in the year after the disaster.
“Tsunami-hit fishing families aim to rebuild a stronger fleet” in Financial Times. September 20, 2011.
NHK Newsline. Aired on March 10, 2010.
Financial Times. “Protect and revive.” August 5, 2011.
“20% of disaster-hit farmland restored by spring.” http:/www.3.nhk.or.jp/daily/English/20111231_07.html Retrieved on December 31, 2011.
Miyazawa, Hitoshi. “Land Use and Tsnami Damage in Pacific Coast Region of Tohoku District” in The 2011 East Japan Earthquake Bulletin of the Tohoku Geographical Association. Published May 25, 2011. Retrieved on September 25, 2011.
NHK Road Ahead Program, aired on February 3, 2012. See also “Japanese way of doing business has much to be admired” by Mure Dickie in the Financial Times, March 14, 2012.
NHK World/Today’s closeup/Nov. 10, 2011.
Post Tsunami Recovery and Reconstruction. Joint Report of the Government of Sri Lanka and Development Partners, December 2005.
Kusumarathna, K.L.S. and Sagara Chandrasekare. “Some Sociological Implications of Post Tsunami Housing Development” in Tsunami Recovery in Sri Lanka: Retrospects and Prospect. Social Policy Analysis and Research Centre, University of Colombo, in collaboration with Action Aid International, Sri Lanka.
See “Pre and post tsunami issues affecting fishing communities and the challenges to be addressed if ‘build back better’ is to contribute towards sustainable livelihood development in the fisheries sector,” a paper presented by Steve Creech at Sri Lanka: Institute of Policy Studies, Working Paper Series No. 10. November, 2005.
Jirasinghe, Ramya Chamalie. Rhythm of the Sea. Sri Lanka: Hambantota District Chamber of Commerce, 2007.
“Debris hinders fishing in Batticaloa lagoon.” Sunday Observer, March 6, 2005.
“Small boats, danger to fish and fisher community, warns FAO.” Daily Mirror, March 12, 2005.
Sunday Observer of March 27, 2005.