Community-based fisheries management in Bangladesh
September 2010
Fish from Bangladesh’s vast 45,000km2 of inland waters are vital to an estimated 68.9M rural poor people (ref 1) in the country, as well as to the livelihoods of 12M fishers (ref 2) because they require less energy input to cultivate than livestock and are a healthy source of protein.
But catches and biodiversity have been declining due to increased fishing pressure, destructive fishing methods, degradation of habitat by the accumulation of silt, and a shortage of the appropriate habitat in the dry season. Much of the habitat degradation problems have been caused by nearby fields being converted to agriculture, whereby silt and fertilizer run off can pollute rivers and lakes.
That fishing communities tend to be poor is also widely recognized. Poor fishers in Bangladesh have been disadvantaged by policies that favour powerful people leasing fishing rights.
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The community-based fisheries management (CBFM) initiative, supported by DfID and implemented by Bangladesh’s Department of Fisheries in partnership with the WorldFish Center and 11 NGOs, thus aimed to use research-based approaches to promote more equal access to sustainably managed inland fisheries to be run by community-based organisations (CBOs)(ref 3). The CBOs would then establish sustainable fisheries practises such as creating fish sanctuaries, restoring habitats and reintroducing endangered species.
Community-based organisations (CBOs) have restored waterbodies.
Image: WorldFish Center
Moving management responsibility to CBOs would in turn improve the condition of fisheries because the fishers would have a sense of ownership, and hence protection, over the resources. “Responsibility for participatory monitoring of CBOs has also enabled fishers to defend their legal rights to protect water bodies from traditional lease holders,” says Dr Golam Mustafa, Senior Fisheries Coordinator at The WorldFish Center in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
For example, in closed and open beels (government owned water bodies that have been leased out to individuals or groups) CBOs had to commit to pay the lease fees in return for managing control of the water body. Because the lease was previously held by a single person or a 'fishermen's co-operative' controlled by a ‘rural elite’ of a few rich and influential individuals, this was a clear change in tenure and access. Previously, fishers in the newly established CBFM community groups (CBOs) had no access to fishing in those water bodies before the project (ref 3).
After initial success with 14 water bodies the project expanded and under CBFM-2, which ran from 2001-2007, 116 water bodies in 22 districts were included creating some 23,000 direct beneficiaries (ref 3, ref 4).
Community matters
As well as transferring fishing leases (and in some cases reducing the annual inflation of the fees), the programme also created fish sanctuaries that protect fish populations from over fishing. Based on pilot programmes dating back to the 1980s, more than 150 sanctuaries were established in nearly 100 waterbodies under the CBFM approach. This created a unique data set because of the length of time – 11 years – over which different community-managed fisheries approaches have been studied in various places (ref 3).
Fish are attracted to the leaves and branches that make up this sanctuary.
Image: WorldFish Center
The sanctuaries appear to have worked. Based on combined results from production and sustainability indicators, an impact study in 2007 revealed that most CBOs (74%) reported an increase in fish production (of around 20% per hectare) despite an increase of nearly a third in the number of fishers compared to control sites (ref 3).
During CBFM-2 total production gains worth US$900,000 were reached, and CBFM fishers were able to increase their earnings by an average of 21%, compared to 15% in control areas. This was not a statistically significant difference, because it represents increases across all water bodies at a time of rising rural incomes. However, large yield increases in incomes were measured for CBFM-2 floodplains (104%) and rivers (60%) compared to control areas (ref 3, ref 4).
The yield increases also appeared to be sustainable. Fish abundance, indicated by annual average daily catch rates, were up at 72% of monitored sites, with an average increase of 17% per year. Improvements in fish abundance were strongly linked to reductions in fishing intensity and destructive fishing activities, and biodiversity as measured by the Shannon-Weiner Index (H') was higher at 70% of monitored sites (ref 4).
Real impact
Indicating the long-term value and sustainability of the project itself, 123 CBOs were still practising CBFM after the second phase of the programme finished (ref 3). Notably, over half of the CBOs have women as part of their executive management committees.
Women can play an active role in CBOs as shown outside a community centre, Narail. Image: WorldFish Center
It’s not just fish consumption that has increased in villages that practise CBFM. So too, has the standard of housing, as well as increased access to sanitation, healthcare, education and other benefits such as and travel to festivals (ref 3).
The CBFM-2 project won the outstanding research partnership award from the CGIAR in 2004 and has since affected regional and national fisheries policy. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (ref 5) (PRSP) has been informed by the combined impact of CBFM-2 and the other relevant projects, and similar approaches have been included in the Bangladeshi government’s Inland Capture Fisheries Strategy.
Golam Mustafa says that overall the CBFM initiative has had a large impact in Bangladesh to improve fisheries management policy. “There is compelling evidence that community-based management approaches aimed at the poor and vulnerable are effective in a wide range of different inland water body types in Bangladesh,” he says.
One bigger follow on project, also in Bangladesh, is the Sunamganj Community Based Resources Management Project (SCBRMP) that has been working to establish CBFM approaches in more than 200 waterbodies. Supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, it has organised more than 200 CBOs who have been working to achieve CBFM as part of wider Millennium Development Goals.
References
- Community based fisheries management, CBFM policy brief 1, Capturing the benefits
- Management of inland open water fisheries resources of Bangladesh: Issues and options
- Liquid assets: community-based fisheries management in Bangladesh (PDF)
- Community based fisheries management, CBFM policy brief 2, Fisheries yields and sustainability
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