![]() "Today, we have to pay to get these trees."įoraging for wood can also be dangerous in the snake- and insect-infested forests. "Earlier, land owners paid us to uproot rubber trees that are no longer productive," lumberjack Sampath Thushara told AFP in the tea-and-rubber-growing southern village of Nehinna. He says his timber suppliers in the provinces have doubled their prices because of the sharp rise in demand and skyrocketing transport costs. "Earlier we had just one customer - a restaurant that had a wood-fired oven - but we now have so many, we can't meet the demand," Raja told AFP. Unofficial inflation is now second only to Zimbabwe, and the United Nations estimates about 80 percent of people skip meals because they cannot afford food.īefore the crisis, almost all households in Colombo could afford to use gas, but now woodcutter Selliah Raja, 60, is doing a roaring trade. Sri Lanka used to be a middle-income country, with GDP per head comparable to the Philippines and living standards the envy of neighbouring India.īut with economic mismanagement and the crucial tourism industry hammered by COVID-19, the nation has run out of dollars needed to pay for most imports.Īnd the pain will likely continue for some time, with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in parliament on Tuesday saying: "We will have to face difficulties in 2023 as well. "It is also difficult to find firewood and it is also becoming very expensive." "We suffer (smoke inhalation) when cooking with firewood, but we have no choice," Karunawathi told AFP. ![]() Karunawathi, 67, also switched to wood and said it was a choice between closing her business or putting up with smoke and soot. ![]() We are now on firewood," she said, despite moves to address the propane problem. There were pieces of glass all over the floor. "Fortunately, no one was there at the time.
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