Community Based Fisheries Management in Bangladesh
This is a personal website. The objective of this website is to eventually publish some work I have done for 14 months and fulltime from March 2003 through June 2004. The research project was titled Benefit Impact Assessment of the Open Water Fisheries Component (OWFC) of the Fourth Fisheries Project of the Government of Bangladesh supported by a consortium of several donors alongside with the Government of Bangladesh. The research project was informally but widely known as BIM or Benefit Impact Monitoring project. During the course of the work livelihoods impact in 12 fishing grounds were studied. Due to lack of access to sufficient space here I have included abstract of allthe 12 reports that were produced on the 12 fishing grounds and the full reports are also downloadable.
The objective set for the OWFC was to make an:
improvement of inland open-water fisheries management through the development of sustainable, community-based institutions and supporting them in undertaking a program of adaptive management of their fisheries resources using technical measures such as stock enhancement of floodplain fisheries, restoration of fisheries habitats, establishment of fish sanctuaries, and construction of fish passes...
So there were institutional (community development) and technical interventions (stocking, sanctuary, restoration of fish habitats) undertaken to improve the livelihoods of the fishers. The community development aspect was taken care of by hired NGOs. These communities developed fisheries management plans which basically resulted in the outcome of who can fish, how,where, and when. There was an interaction between the community and the stateand hence it can also be termed as one form of co-management.
A wide range of outcomes were generated by the projects depending on the nature of local power structure, institutions, the role of NGO and state, the hydrology of the fishing grounds. Generally the open water fisheries in Bangladesh is characterised by elite capture, i. e., access rights are concentrated to those who are generally not involved in fishing. The success of the interventions depended how it handled power issues. Here we will not draw any conclusion. A quick scan through the 12 abstracts will help one to draw his or her personal conclusion.
I would like to thank alll those who worked with me in various capacities. The research assistants have done a wonderfurl job. Mark Aeron-Thomas designed the study methodology which was modified when situation demanded. He meticuously went through all the reports and made valuable comments. I also benefited from comments from Mike Daplyn, Saleha Begum, amongst others.
I have several plans. First, I would like to post all the reports in a larger website (any help in this regard would be welcome). Second, I would like to publish journal articles from these reports. This is constrained by funding and availability of time. Third, I would like to add more work on fisheries in this website. This is the first website that I have produced and therefore it looks pretty ordinary. Finally, I would like to improve upon the digital beauty of this website. Please feel free to link this site to yours and I will follow suit.