Online edition of Sunday Observer

On Friday's count, the individual shrimp in the ponds weighed 33 grams. Owners and operators in Captain Farm, Manativu, had the harvesting gear ready to reap the fruits of four month's toil the following morning.

Some of the beautiful ornamental fish which will be available at the fiesta.

A lorry was plying from one of the four processing plants in the area to purchase the shrimp harvest. A kilo was going at around Rs.600 and the shrimp farmers looked ahead to a sizable profit.

But, that night, the floods came and washed away the shrimps to the lagoon. By the early hours of the dawn, "white gold" as it is known in Bangladesh had slipped through the usually nimble fingers of shrimp enterprisers, leaving in its wake, heavy financial loss, despair and regret.

Peddle Wheel - oxygenating shrimp.

About 18 farms were damaged in Ismail Puram, with pond embankments crashing with the force of water and the only means to the area - an uncarpetted gravel road - muddied and obstructed by driftwood which was cut-off by waist-deep flood water at intersections, even a week later.

At Watakande, Ismail Puram, farm owners and young hired help were attempting to make the roadway transportable again. "There are about 50 shrimp farms of nearly 1,000 acres around, with about 1,500 farmers," said Nazeer, owner, Royal Aqua Farm. "We bring in millions in foreign exchange, but there is no help from any one in this calamity. We don't want relief, we just want assistance to repair the road so that we can have lorries coming here for our harvest."

"The last floods were in 1998," says a shrimp farmer in Manativu. "When it rained on Friday, they opened the sluice gates of Iginiyamitiya Dam built across Mee Oya. All that water gushed out and washed away our shrimp."

Young helper feeds shrimp.

Ganga Farm was valiantly harvesting shrimp, many of which had already molted, reducing its value. "What we could have given at Rs.600 a kilo, can only be sold at Rs.300 now," one farmer lamented. "Floods meant we could not change pond water for shrimp so salinity level was lowered."

One reason why the floods were so severe was the unauthorised construction of shrimp ponds which obstruct natural drainage paths to the lagoon," says Jayalath Dissanayake, District Secretary, Puttlam. "We are now contemplating action to remove this kind of construction. AGA offices in Puttlam Districts are now carrying out a survey to identify these natural water flow paths."

Driving along Mundalama Lagoon in Kiriyan Kalliya, one sees a seemingly endless stretch of shrimp farms constructed right up to the lagoon periphery, straddling across the railway reserve. Whatever mangroves the lagoon may have harboured had disappeared in 1994 when enterprisers took to shrimp farming earneslty in Mundalama, with scant regard for whatever regulatory mechanism in existence then. At the cost of mangroves, the roots of which block soil erosion and also afford a fertile breeding ground for lagoon fish, crabs and shrimp.

Prawn ponds built on the railway reserve - Mundalama.

"The approving criteria for pond construction aims to minimise environmental damage," explains C.R. Tilak, Director-Aqua Culture, National Aqua Culture Development Authority (NAQDA), the Chilaw office of which monitors the shrimp farming activities in the Puttlam District. "Care must be taken that fishermen's access to the lagoon and their landing sites is not blocked. In order that water drainage to rivers, lakes and canals is not obstructed, Irrigation Department specifies that a 20-meter distance is maintained from a canal narrower than 15 feet." Similarly, a 40-meter distance for 15-20 ft wide canals and 60-meters for water ways broader than 50 ft. should be maintained while a 132 ft distance should be kept from a lagoon.

Yet for an industry as lucrative as shrimping, environmental concerns may rate much lower than financial concerns.

Rupees five hundred thousand spent on post-larvea (shrimp fry), feed and other accompanying costs for one acre pond, could very well rake in a profit of just half that cost. For the local species, Tiger Prawn (Penaeus monodon), weighing 30-35 grams in five months after seeds are sown, the market could command the highest price it could get, depending on the supply which is purchased by just six private processers in the area.

A lucrative catch of shrimps

Chilaw-Puttlam road has the thickest density of the island's shrimp farms, concentrated in thoduwawa, Madampe, Chilaw, Arachchi Kattuwa, Mundalama, Kiriyankalliya, Kalpitiya and Wanatha Willuwa. For these businessmen and their helpers, who come from as far as Akurana, Kandy and Badulla to cultivate shrimps in prolific work stations strung as far as the eye could see, life could also be filled with conflict, fighting off encroacher farmers, mainly for water ways.

Ariya Kannangara, Chairman, NAQDA, said that on a special request by Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Mahinda Wijesekera, the farms most detrimental to the environment and the industry, estimated to be about 200 in number, would be asked to be removed with no political preferences whatsoever. The criteria for such removal was expected to be discussed on Wednesday.

Farms to be regularised

A 2001 Divisional Secretary area survey rcorded 11,000 acres of shrimp farms in the Puttlam District, according to C.R. Tilak, Director-Aqua Culture, NAQDA. Approved extent is only 5,000 acres, with almost 6,000 acres being unauthorised farms and unauthorised extentions.

Fisheries and Aquatic Reserves Act No. 2 of 1996 made a legal requirment that every Aqua Culture enterprise must obtain a Management Licence. A Shrimp Monitoring Unit is now in operation measuring farms to detect violations of reserves.

NQADA feels that the present extent of farms should not be exceeded. "11,000 acres far exceed the carrying capacity of the lagoon system of Puttlam, Chilaw, Mundal and the Dutch Canal which comprise the water source of shrimp farms." In order to reduce the unauthorised extent, farms would be requested to follow the regulation of maintaining 20% of the farm area as the water-intake reservoir and 10% as a sedimentation tank, before letting waste water to the lagoon. Diversification and crop rotation with shrimp/milk fish/thilapia is another method envisaged.

To achieve a sustainable manner of farming and regularise the farms, registration of shrimp farms was carried out and 350 had responded to come to the regularising process and the rest were given time. Decision on discontinuing the illegal farms was expected to be made at a meeting betwen the farmers and all concerned government reprsentatives, held on December 4.