Beel fishery and livelihood of the local community in Rajdhala, Netrakona, Bangladesh

Baseline survey and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) during January 2003 toDecember 2004 on the fishing community revealed that unregulated fishing, use ofdestructive fishing gears, poaching of fishes, difficulties encountered in enforcingfisheries regulation and the helplessness of fishers to find alternative sources of incomeduring banned fishing period (June to October) were the major management problems.CBFM (Community Based Fisheries Management) system as an alternative managementstrategy has been introduced to ensure active participation of the target group-the poorfishers living around the beet who were previously deprived to get access to the beet.Establishing a leasing system for controlled access, ensuring greater user-groupparticipation through equitable distribution of all resource benefits among members,attempting to enforce penalties for illegal fishing linked with surprise checks to enforcemanagement regulations are some of the recent steps taken by the BMC (BeelManagement Committee). Chapila fish intake by the community was 31.25 g/head/daybefore stocking the beel by carp fingerlings. After stocking, they consumed chapila as fishprotein from 8.33 g to 20.8 g/head/day during the fishing season (November to May)indicating that due to introduction of carp fingerlings, chapila production has beendecreased in 2003-2004. About 77.5% families around the beel were found to bedependent directly and/or indirectly on chapila and other indigenous fishes of the beel fortheir livelihood, through fishing, marketing and other activities like net and boatpreparation and nets mending etc. Particularly fishers' families were found to face seriousproblem during non-fishing period like June to October for their livelihood. Analyzingthe present research result it was also observed that other than declination inbiodiversity, the fishing pressure on promising chapila of the beel was found high andthat is why the production of chapila has also been decreased. To get sustainable chapilaproduction from the heel, it is suggested to ensure successful spawning and recruitmentas juveniles, and hence the chapila should be undisturbed during its breeding periodfrom March to July, and fishing pressure on the same species needs to be reduced forobtaining sustainable fish production.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Rahman, M.A., Haque, M.M.
Format:	article biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	2008
Subjects:	Biology, Fisheries, Beel, Livelihood, CBFM, Gudusia chapra,
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/1834/33369
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