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| Sunday, 7 August 2005 |
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B'caloa lagoon under restoration From Elmo Leonard in Batticaloa The fisheries rich Batticaloa lagoon in the centre of the coastal east of the island is under restoration following the tsunami to provide 3,500 lagoon fishermen and their families the chance to restart life. The Batticaloa lagoon which extends from the border of Ampara district to the south through Batticaloa town and north to Valachchenai is also a significant landmark in the east and tourist attraction stemming from its fabled 'singing fish'. Fishing is severely affected here, due to silt, wood, trees, broken fishing craft and debris of all types having entered this vast water body with the mighty waves of the tsunami in December. The vanguard of this operation is the USAID, through its Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) program. ITI has hired heavy equipment and assembled multi-disciplinary teams of engineers and technicians, including divers from the Sri Lanka Navy. Other partners in the clean up include local elected government officials and civil servants, police, fishing societies, the multi-ethnic National Youth Services Council and a large contingent of volunteer youth. The OTI grant for the project is expected to exceed $71,000, Deputy Country Representative for OTI, Sri Lanka, Rachel Wax said. The Batticaloa lagoon comprises brackish water. The fishermen go in canoes (which are being replaced by NGOs) by day and come by night with crab, shrimp, mollusc, catfish and more biodiversity. The fishermen around the Batticaloa town are mainly Tamil, but further south an increasing number of Sinhalese and Muslims share the same livelihood. OTI has brought together people of three races into the cleaning up of the lagoon, in keeping with one of the objectives of promoting racial amity, and negotiated peace settlement, in countries where conflicts have ceased, USAID's Development Outreach and Communications Officer, Richard Zack Taylor said. OTI programs have started in 12 such countries and OTI now has offices in Ampara, Trincomalee and Matara. Since its inception of OTI here, 400 small-grant agreements, most with local organisations totalling over $11 million have been undertaken, Wax said. |
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