Mangrove Dilemmas: Balancing Climate Urgency and Traditional Brush Park Fisheries in Sri Lanka

Abstract (English)

Climate urgency refers to the pressing need for immediate action to mitigate the escalating impacts of climate change before they become irreversible. Yet this urgency often places significant pressure on both human and non-human environments, particularly in sensitive coastal areas such as mangrove forests. In Sri Lanka, government-imposed bans on mangrove cutting – intended to safeguard these habitats – have produced unintended consequences for the lagoon environment and traditional fisheries, especially brush park fishing.
Brush parks are a traditional method of fish cultivation in which mangrove branches are placed in coastal lagoons to create artificial habitats. These practices are not merely ecological but embedded in local livelihoods, cultural routines, and socio-environmental relations. However, contemporary environmental governance – shaped by political, scientific, and global conservation frameworks – often overlooks these entangled connections. While conservation measures in response to climate urgency aim to curb degradation, they may unintentionally disrupt customary practices and unsettle historically grounded ecological relations.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and participatory observation with local fishers, this paper examines how climate change narratives and conservation policies have progressively reshaped fishing practices and the socio-material relations that sustain them. It traces how such interventions have weakened community connections to place, marginalized local knowledge, and discouraged engagement in customary activities.
Findings indicate that institutional frameworks, though aimed at protection, often fail to accommodate the cultural and ecological specificities of brush park fishing. In the absence of community-led stewardship, economically motivated actors have begun to exploit the lagoon, accelerating environmental degradation. Rather than framing climate urgency solely as a race against time, the paper highlights the importance of attending to the complex, situated relations through which climate responses are enacted, and argues for more context-sensitive approaches that engage with local knowledge and lived practices.