Community Based Fisheries Management in Bangladesh
Beel Gawha
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The PWB Beel Gawha is a beel located in the Gobratola Union of the Sadar Upazilla of the District of Chapai Nawabganj. The FFP intervened here through restoring the fish habitat, stocking and creating a sanctuary. BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) is the implementing NGO and there are 4 project villages of 1,786 households. Historically, the PWB was well connected to the Mahananda River through several canals and other beels. The FCDI project of 1986 changed the hydrology of the project area and its environs. Fishing practices also changed. The effectiveness of the fishing gear is now determined less by nature and more by the amount of stocking. The number of species of fish declined sharply - only a small proportion of catch is composed of naturally recruited fish.
Up to 1992, the leaseholders or the Mahajans leased in the PWB from the office of the ADC (Revenue) with a tacit understanding with the leaders of various Fishers' Cooperatives. The main fishing gears used in the water body were ber jal and fash jal and their owners were required to pay tolls to the Mahajan. The subsistence fishers normally fished in the months of Srabon, Bhadra and Ashin and for free. All stocks relied on natural recruitment.
The FCDI project opened up the opportunity for aquaculture in the beels. This started with a lag in the PWB but brought several changes to property rights. The Fishers' cooperatives were ignored and the leaseholders did not require their mask. Open bidding pushed up the auction value of the PWB. The Fishers' cooperatives that could not be totally ignored previously are now also priced out and have become functionally defunct. The fishers themselves were virtually turned to fish workers. The major contractual change took place in this sphere through the institution of pala bodol that allowed the Mahajans to keep a tight control of both labour costs and the distribution of fishing opportunities among their fisher clients. Under these rules the Mahajan decided on all the key variables: which fishers can fish, the amount and species of catch, the size of fish caught, duration of fishing time, and the share of catch the fishers will get from the harvest. The Mahajan thus effectively determined fisher's income from each days fishing. The pala bodol also involved a rotation of fishing teams, which determined how often each fisher was able to fish and how many fishers are involved. In practice, most of these opportunities went to fishers from Sarjan village, irrespective of who was controlling the water body. But the individuals involved did differ, as different Mahajans had different clients; so, exclusion and inclusion was common.
FFP gave a new spin to this situation. Three of leaders of the old fisheries co-operatives have been incorporated into the FMC to give the appearance of a participatory institution; but about half the membership and the real power still resides with former Mahajans and members of the local elites who had been large financial contributors. The continuity of this arrangement with what had gone before is clearly demonstrated in the various rules, regulations, and resolutions adopted in the FMPs. These largely formalise a re-enactment of the highly unequal relationship that existed between the Mahajans and the fishers but with the FMC taking the role of the latter.
Two project villages, Mohipur and Sarjan, were studied in depth. There are only six occasional fishers in Mohipur but they are the only fishers who catch natural species of fish in the PWB, using traps known as bitti. At Sarjan, which has (as noted) long been the principal source of fishers/fish labourers at the PWB, there are 52 professional fishers. They fish in the water body with singapori jal (ber jal) and fash jal but most also have cast nets. Fishers from other project villages only rarely fish in the PWB and it is mainly for this reason we have not studied them.
The six fishers from Mohipur were the only genuine fishers who had contributed (about Tk. 9,500 each). As a result, they did acquire access rights to the hotspots for bitti fishing in the PWB (yielding them a small financial gain) but till June 2004 they had received no share of the profits from stocking.
The project has increased fishing opportunities for both fash jal and singapori jal fishing teams. Before the FFP only two fishing singapori jal were used everyday in the water body but during the FFP three other singapori jals were also used in 3-2 pala system (three nets on one day followed by two the next, rotating). There was an even larger increase for fash jal teams. Before FFP two sets of four teams worked on alternate days; after FFP, three sets of six teams worked every third day. So, more fishers could fish after FFP as more gears participated in the harvest. For those previously unable to fish this was an unequivocal gain. Those who had previously fished the decline in the regularity of employment was compensated, at least in part, in a number of ways from a general improvement in the conditions of fishing: the increased catch (due to stocking), an increased catch share (up from 10% to 15%), better prices and a greater allowance of fish for home consumption. For those that did lose out, losses were marginal and they coped well by fishing elsewhere (particularly the Mahananda) or following a variety of other livelihood activities.
The women from the fisher households are not involved with any activities that earn income directly but they are aware of the development in the PWB. Women from bitti fisher households are concerned about the money they invested in the project while the women from the fisher households from Sarjan are divided. Women from the households who acquired fishing rights during the FFP showed their satisfaction with the project while women from fishing households who witnessed a decline in income decided not to express their reaction.
There was some scepticism at DOF about the suitability of this site for FFP, as they knew well that the poor fishers would be unable to pay the lease value and that elites would capture project institutions. It is not clear why they went ahead. The LGED also did not follow a consultative process for designing and implementing the habitat restoration. The link between the beel and the river was not re-opened, so there were no gains in natural recruitment. The pond excavated was small and the dirt was deposited inside the beel, reducing space and affecting fish movement. But most fishers were of the opinion that it had helped to increase catch of stocked species, as it stretched the harvesting period through the dry season.
The implementing NGO was a passive onlooker. It must have been quickly apparent that it was not possible for them to involve the community in fisheries management under the circumstances that prevailed; but they continued to draw their wages while misrepresenting the realities of the project's implementation.
Despite the failure to pass control of the resource to genuine fishers, FFP must be considered a partial success at this water body, as there was an increase in total catch - confirmed by both the market study and the seasonal fishing calendars, more fishers were involved in harvesting and their terms of access had improved. What happens after the project finishes and the state subsidy is withdrawn is an open question. Current indications of this (based on observations during the last re-visit) are not good: the share of the fisher to the harvest had been reduced to a pre-FFP level, as had the amount of fish fishers were allowed to take freely for home consumption. The marginalised and the disempowered fishers continued to remain marginalised and disempowered while the benefits were no more than the gifts swapped for unclaimed rights already lost by the fishers well before the FFP.