Babarandage don Sarath Appuham, a 59-year-old fisherman, has worked at Negombo Lagoon since he was a teenager. Palpable differences in tide patterns and fish catches from climate change have complicated his work.
“We used to always go at 9am, then 1pm. It’s no longer that predictable,” Sarath told Al Jazeera.
They have to gauge conditions day by day now, he said. Sometimes the waves are too rough to venture out on.
Along Sri Lanka’s 1,700km (1,056 miles) of coasts and lagoons, artisanal fishermen cast and gather their nets several times a day. Nearly half of the country’s animal protein intake comes from fish, close to three times the global average.
The exact style of net employed and method of fishing varies village by village, born from generations of experience. For instance, in the Kalpitiya peninsula in western Sri Lanka’s Puttalam district, beach seine fishers (who traditionally work in teams of 15-30 people, using a single net to surround a school of fish) employ very fine “bait” nets to catch smaller fish like anchovies and sardines. Larger meshed ones (seer and thara nets) cast further south are conducive for catching mackerel and tuna. An estimated thousand beach seines operate across the country.
Boys managing the beach seine nets after hauling in the day’s catch, by Negombo Lagoon, which was quite poor that day [Kang-Chun Cheng/Al Jazeera]
But amid the familiarity of these enduring practices, new tensions and stresses are stirring as Sri Lanka continues to undergo the worst economic crisis in its history.
Sarath Appuham’s beach seine owner acquired a tractor a few years ago in an attempt to counter slumping labour issues and what seems to be fewer fish in the ocean. Although the winching allows Sarath and his colleagues to cast their nets up to four times a day, double what they could do when the work was fully manual, there is virtually no difference in total commercially viable fish caught at the end of the day.
Rocketing prices for pantry items such as beans and vegetable oil mean that his wife has cut back on her shopping for the family.
TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets also climbed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says wholesale sales, excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain, rose 0.4 per cent to $82.7 billion in July.
The increase came as sales in the miscellaneous subsector gained three per cent to reach $10.5 billion in July, helped by strength in the agriculture supplies industry group, which rose 9.2 per cent.
The food, beverage and tobacco subsector added 1.7 per cent to total $15 billion in July.
The personal and household goods subsector fell 2.5 per cent to $12.1 billion.
In volume terms, overall wholesale sales rose 0.5 per cent in July.
Statistics Canada started including oilseed and grain as well as the petroleum and petroleum products subsector as part of wholesale trade last year, but is excluding the data from monthly analysis until there is enough historical data.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 150 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in the base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 172.18 points at 23,383.35.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 34.99 points at 40,826.72. The S&P 500 index was up 10.56 points at 5,564.69, while the Nasdaq composite was up 74.84 points at 17,470.37.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.55 cents US compared with 73.59 cents US on Wednesday.
The October crude oil contract was up $2.00 at US$69.31 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up five cents at US$2.32 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$40.00 at US$2,582.40 an ounce and the December copper contract was up six cents at US$4.20 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
