The World From Below

Place

Sri Lanka · Western Province / Negombo lagoon & Pamunugama coast

Negombo

A west-coast lagoon town where fish farms and fishing grounds open into the Indian Ocean — still contending with plastic nurdles five years after the May 2021 X-Press Pearl spill.

Illustrative landscape of fishing boats in Negombo Lagoon, Sri Lanka, viewed from Pitipana Bridge (Wikimedia Commons / Steffen Schmitz). Editorial place card — NOT Jude Anthony, NOT his pens, not from The Guardian.

Illustrative place identifier: fishing boats in Negombo Lagoon, Sri Lanka (Wikimedia Commons / Steffen Schmitz). Used to identify the Negombo place card — NOT the Field Note subject, NOT his fish pens, not from The Guardian. · Credit: Steffen Schmitz / Wikimedia Commons · Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Negombo,_Lagoon,_2025-08_CN-06.jpg

Related forces

Nurdle & Net

Stories

The Lagoon He Still Farms

Five years after the X-Press Pearl nurdle spill, Negombo lagoon fish farmer Jude Anthony says pollution still keeps him from fishing properly — while a billion-dollar court order remains largely unpaid.