Sri Lankan fishermen stop building of seaplane platform in Negombo Lagoon, 2010-2011

After his election to office in 2005, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced he would work to bring peace and economic prosperity to all communities of Sri Lanka with his Mahinda Chinthana development program. The program included his SeaPlane project, a plan to build a number of seaplane airports to encourage tourism to more secluded areas of Sri Lanka such as Negombo Lagoon. 

Concerned about the negative effects of the seaplane airport construction on the vegetation and natural resources of the lagoon and their livelihoods, fishermen and villagers from Negombo began a campaign against the SeaPlane project. 

The earliest known action the fishermen and villagers took was on 31 October 2010 at the annual St. Jude Forest Birds festival. About 2,000 fishermen, Catholics, church leaders, members of trade unions and local organizations, and social activists gathered in the parish of Kurulu Kele, archdiocese of Colombo, and prayed for God to protect their livelihoods from the disruptions the project would cause. At the mass, the attending Catholic priests announced their support for the campaign and wrote a letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, requesting that he stop development because of the potential impacts on the fishing families in Negombo. Fishermen have estimated that the Negombo Lagoon directly supports over 5,000 families in 35 villages and indirectly supports 4,000 families, fish sellers, collectors, repair centers, and centers for the sale of equipment.

On 18 November over 8,000 fishermen and villagers protested excavation work for building a seaplane platform in the lagoon. Hundreds rowed boats out into the lagoon to nonviolently interject and physically prevent digging. The Convener of the Alliance for the Protection of Negombo Lagoon, Herman Kumara, announced to the media that they would not leave until authorities removed the excavation machines, including a barge carrying dredged dirt. 

The protestors also demanded an immediate halt to the excavation work as well as a meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa to put an end to the entire project. 

President Rajapaksa’s younger brother and Defense Minister, Gotabya Rajapaksa, blamed the Catholic clergy for stirring up the local fishing population and threatened to use the Navy to force the demonstrators to disperse. 

After ten hours of protest (from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm local time), authorities agreed to suspend work on the project. The demonstration ended after the announcement, but protestors vowed to continue to fight until the government released an official statement for the cancellation of the construction in Negombo.

On December 2, fishermen and activists met with Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, who agreed to mediate with the government for a permanent end to the SeaPlane project. 

The Sri Lankan governmet refused to back down on the project but decided to move the SeaPlane project from Negombo to a different location in January 2011. 

No information on protests occurring in 2012 was found.

In May 2012, the government opened their main seaplane airport in Dandugama Oya.