Sri
Lanka's poor under the
weather By Amantha Perera
PANSALGOLLA, Sri Lanka - The old adage
"nature is the great equalizer" no longer holds
true in countries like Sri Lanka, where the poor
bear the brunt of extreme weather events.
Gamhevage Dayananda, a farmer from the
remote village of Pansalgolla in Sri Lanka's
north-central Polonnaruwa district, can attest to
this reality, as he and his fellow farmers
struggle to survive alternating periods of drought
and flooding.
Unexpectedly heavy rains in
February 2011 forced engineers to open the sluice
gates of large irrigation tanks in the area,
flooding hectare upon hectare of farmland,
including Dayananda's modest plot. He lost his
entire rice harvest, no small setback for his family
of four who depend on
this crop for their very survival.
This
year, Dayananda found himself facing another
crisis when drought destroyed his crop and put him
at risk of falling deeper into debt.
"One
season it's all rain, next it's all sun,"
Dayananda told IPS. "There is nothing in
moderation, it is all in extremes."
The
trend of extreme weather events alternating year
after year is unlikely to change, according to W L
Sumathipala, former head of the climate change
unit at the Ministry of Environment, adding that
Sri Lanka is at the receiving end of changing
climate patterns. Last year's annual
report for the United Nations Central Emergency
Response Fund (CERF) noted, "Climate-related
emergencies, such as those linked to drought,
floods, and storms, expose the poor and most
vulnerable to hazards that have lasting
consequences for the health, livelihoods, and
well-being of people who have the least capacity
to cope with and mitigate the effects of natural
disasters."
Widespread
poverty About 8.9% of the island nation's
21 million people live below the poverty line. Of
these, according to Abha Joshi-Ghani, head of the
World Bank's Urban Development and Local
Government Unit, "the poor in urban areas are
likely to be affected more by the changing climate
patterns. They are the most vulnerable because
they live in sensitive areas, on precarious land
where no one else will settle."
The
British-based charity Homeless International
estimates that 12% of Sri Lanka's urban population
of about 3 million can be found in slums.
Defence and Urban Development Secretary
Gotabaya Rajapaksa was recently quoted as saying
that shanty dwellers in the capital Colombo can be
found "mostly on government land. ... Many of them
are on reservations set aside around the lakes,
canals, roadways, and railway tracks."
The
biggest threat to this population is flash floods.
Since 2007, the nation's capital - along with
other parts of the western region - has been
submerged more than two dozen times. Some areas
end up under water after just 30 minutes of heavy
rain, as was experienced during the third week of
October.
This situation can be traced in
part to the capital's compromised drainage
capacity, but increasingly heavy downpours over
the years have made matters worse, particularly
since there are no signs this trend will let up
anytime soon.
In its Second National
Communication on Climate Change 2012, the
environment ministry says that Colombo and the
rest of the western plains can only expect more
wet days ahead, with "intense" periods of rain.
By contrast, rice farmers are probably
going to have to deal with long dry spells for
some time to come. According to the environment
ministry, the agrarian areas in parts of the east
and northern provinces, including Polonnaruwa,
will not only get less rain than they need, they
will also experience higher temperatures.
The Central Bank estimates that a
0.5-degree Celsius rise in temperatures could
reduce rice yields by around 5%. An Asian
Development Bank report last year identified
climate change as the "greatest threat to food
security".
Local sustainable development
expert Riza Yehiya warned, "Food security
fluctuations due to climate change will be
accompanied by unsteady energy security, modern
society's greatest prerequisite" next to food and
water.
"The combined effects of this
triumvirate - water, food, and energy insecurity -
will render poorer sections of society extremely
vulnerable unless social security for this sector
is beefed up as part of the climate change
mitigation programme."
Last April, farmers
in Polonnaruwa took to the streets after
irrigation engineers stopped providing water
because of the drought. At the time, the farmers
said more than 16,000 hectares of paddy fields
feeding off the Parakarama Samudarya irrigation
tank were in danger of going completely dry.
After being hit by floods in the early
part of 2011, which destroyed more than 16,000
hectares of paddy fields and roughly 10% of the
early harvest, rice farmers in the north and
north-central regions are now facing the opposite
end of that spectrum.
Severe drought
during the first nine months of 2012 affected 1.3
million people, a rapid assessment by the World
Food Program (WFP) found.
Experts have
estimated that close to 29% of an estimated
harvest of 1.1 million tonnes will be lost, while
76,000 hectares, or 19% of the planted crop, has
already been destroyed.
"Preliminary
findings indicate substantial livelihood impact on
a broad spectrum of the population and a
deterioration of food security," according to the
WFP Global Food Security Update for October.
Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, a prominent
economist, believes that unemployment could be as
high as 20% in some parts of the Northern
Province, though no government data exists to
support this view.
This story was
produced as part of IPS Asia-Pacific's 'Climate
Change: A Reporting Lens from Asia' series.
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