Community Based Fisheries Management in Bangladesh
Padma Narisha Unjanjala
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The PWB is called Padma Narisha Ujanjala. It is located in Dohar Upazilla under the district of Dhaka. The PWB is a part of the River Padma separated by a large charland. This separation happened about half a decade ago. The PWB appears as an alienated entity from the river Padma only in the dry season. The length and width of this water body is 5 kilometres and 300-400 metre respectively. There are four villages in the project. The FFP intervention here involved construction of a sanctuary. The implementing NGO is Proshika - one of the biggest NGO in Bangladesh.
The FMC enforced a seven month long ban on all fishing gear. This was done in sharp violation of the rules explicitly stated in the FMP. As a result all the fishers from the project villages lost their fishing rights in the PWB during the period of the fishing ban. This resulted in lost fishing days, reduced income, and increased uncertainty about the rights of the fishers over the PWB of the project villages. However, this did not affect the livelihoods of most of the fishers in a significant way for many reasons. First, the local economy is strong. Crops of various types are grown throughout the year. Therefore agricultural wages are high and work is generally available for the able and willing. This attracted migrant casual agricultural labourers from distant parts of the country. Second, some professional and occasional fisher households own land and they are also involved in agriculture. Second, migration is common in most households. People migrated to urban areas and also beyond national boundaries. Remittance inflow kept the local economy vibrant. Third, there are a large number of alternative fishing grounds where the fishers retained their rights of access. Some of these water bodies are as fertile as the PWB. The exodus to these alternative fishing grounds did not result in overfishing. As fishers increased fishing time in these water bodies there total income increased. As a whole the loss of income at the aggregate level is marginal. But those who do not own boats or are involved more in agriculture in the village lost income because they could not fish longer in the river Padma. But their initial asset portfolio and available livelihood opportunities helped them to cope. There was no report of forced livelihoods diversification, sale of assets, borrowing from informal sources or reduction in food consumption and so on.
The FMC was captured by the local elites. The DOF and NGO staff never challenged this. They in effect became a party to these power brokers. They allowed fishing in katha during the fishing ban. Professional Hindu fishers from villages outside the project participated in katha fishing. They were forced to catch fish for the FMC in the sanctuary. For this these fishers were paid nothing. Due to complete fishing ban catch increased. But the fishers outside the project village, the elite group, NGO workers, the UFO and others reaped the benefits of the project. But the cost of restriction was borne by the fishers of the project villages. They could not gain anything from the project.