Dried fish making as a means of building resilience against fishing related vulnerabilities in small-scale fishing communities of Southern Sri Lanka

Small-scale fishing communities are increasingly being affected by various shocks, changes, stressors and uncertainties, raising questions about their ability to cope with them. On another front, fishers are entangled in a poverty trap and escape from it is difficult due to their poor access to diverse livelihood capitals. Fisher populations have been compelled to confront these diversity of shocks and adapt themselves in order to “remain in the game”, which is an arduous task, not easily attainable. Thus, fishers need to develop strategies to effectively cope with shocks and stresses, or in other words, to be resilient. Dried fish making is one of the traditional household activities of fisher women in Sri Lanka. In this context, a review was carried out to identify the capability of “dried fish industry” towards building resilience against diverse vulnerabilities confronted by small-scale fishers. Based on the reviewed literature it could be argued that dried fish would contribute towards building resilience in three ways; i) as a source of supplementary income which tend to smoothen inter-temporal flows of daily fishing incomes. ii) as a cheap source of animal protein in meeting the nutritional needs of vulnerable people, and iii) by playing a major role towards women empowerment and accumulating social capital.