How stilt fishing tribe was affected by tsunami

Описание: (12 Jan 2005)
1. Various of man with fishing net
2. Wooden stilts in water with waves
3. Young boys on beach
4. Man in water fishing
5. Men standing on stilts in water
6. Man on stilt in water with fishing rod
7. Man on beach
8. SOUNDBITE: (Singhalese) Athpanna Kramaya, Villager:
"I haven't faced anything like this before. I'm very sad. I lost my grandson."
9. Pan from palm trees to destruction on beach
10. Girl sitting on beach
11. SOUNDBITE: (Singhalese) Various men clapping and singing:
"We have broken boats and broken sails but we want to go to the sea again."
12. Women and children by destruction
13. Close of women and children
14. Close of debris
STORYLINE:
In the town of Kabalana, Sri Lanka, 83 families live on the beach and depend on the sea for their livelihood.
Almost all the men are in the area fishermen and practice a unique type of fishing on stilts.
There is a hierarchy to the stilts which are passed down from generation to generation.
On December 26th, when the tsunami ravaged their village, most of these people's homes - and stilts - were destroyed.
They use this method of subsistence fishing because the coastline here is a shelf of calcified limestone which is very shallow and makes it virtually impossible to bring a boat ashore, or to use nets which would be ripped by the jagged rock.
Instead they have pioneered a method of using poles which are made of palm trees and bashed into the brittle rock.
The poles become a platform from which the villagers use a wooden rod to bait the fish that are caught in the pools of water which remain after high tide.
Despite the devastation to their community, the people here have already made new fishing platforms and have tried to resume their way of life.
And fortunately for residents here, there weren't as many human casualties from the tsunami as most villagers were further inland on December 26th observing the religious holiday of Puja - or the full moon festival - at the local Buddhist temple.
However, now the Sri Lankan government is proposing a 200 metre law - which will mean that you will not be allowed to build a home within 200 metres of the shoreline.
Since all the villagers in Kabalana live within 50 metres of the water - in order to observe when the trapped fish are ready to be caught - many villagers fear their way of life will be threatened.
Keywords - Indian ocean earthquake tsunami

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