Community Based Beel Fisheries Management (CBRMP): a process to give

access of poor fishers to beel resources

Introduction

Fisheries development is one of the

major components of CBRMP aims at
poverty alleviation of the poor
community in Sunamganj through
improved management of beel
resources and thereby increased income
of them. The project has a target of
accessing to 300 beels ( 86 above 20
acres and 214 below 20 acres ) and
transferring those to 3000 Beel User
groups (BUG) comprising a total of 9500
members of which 30% are to be
women. The beels are being received
from Ministry of Land under a Figure 1: Women members actively participating in BUG
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) management
for a period of 10 years at first stage and later upon performance that would be
extended for more 10 years.

Approach and process

The project introduced a Community based approach for beel fisheries management
(CBFM). It is a co-management process involves stakeholders from different levels
with defined responsibilities and roles. The fishers are the main actors and the
ultimate beneficiaries. Fisheries Department engages in this process to give
technical training and provide back-stopping supports to BUG for better fisheries
management, Local Administration assists in processing and handing over the beels
to BUG and demarcating beel area, the Wprldfish Center provides research and
study supports in surveying fish biodiversity and socio-economic impact of fisher
community. Beels are selected primarily based on the information of digital
resource mapping and later PRA is carried out to understand the social context,
location of command villages and fisher households, and some other issues related
to beel fishers management, and finally an inventory is made of the interested
fishers for including them in BUG.

BUG members get trained in group

management, accounts and book
keeping, group dynamics and conflict
resolution, fish conservation and
biodiversity, beel re- excavation,
raising swamp tree nursery and beel side
plantation, improved fish drying and
fish marketing.

Figure 2: The concrete block road linked beel with

locality at Biswambarpur
 Each BUG has an executive committee of 7 members elected by direct secret ballot
by the BUG members for a period of two years. The committee leads BUG following
a set of rules developed in the line of government Jalmahal Management Guidelines
and standard democratic good practices. The BUG has its account and books for
record keeping of financial transactions and other data such as fish catch, sale,
income and expenditures. The unique part of the beel management is in all works
related to beel resource management including demarcation, re-excavation,
harvesting, guarding, and conservation - community fishers themselves plan,
implement and monitor in a participatory manner.

Achievements

By this time 211 beels have been transferred

to the project under first package and the
rest 89 are under process. Out of total
transfer, project has handed over 157 beels to
equal numbers of BUGs comprising 6360
members of which 23% are women. Few beels
are yet to give to community following some
social disputes and other technicalities such as
relatively high lease value and changes of the
beel topography into agricultural land.
However a process is underway to replace
those beels by suitable ones.
Figure 3: State Minister Land, Mr. Mostafizur
A good numbers of activities have been taken Rahman MP distributing yearly benefit to BUG
to improve the beel resources. For restoring members at Jamalganj
the beel habitat, 128 beels have been re-excavated spending Tk. 225.94 lac, and
that has created an employment of 111660 labourdays where 25% were women
were engaged. A total of 37 fish sanctuaries have been
established at some strategic zones for promoting fish
biodiversity. For connecting beel with locality, 13 numbers
of roads of total 10.25 km have been built by Labour
Contracting Society (LCS) formed solely including BUG
members, a total of 93,858 swamp trees have been
planted on beel side for regenerating swamp forestry in
haor areas, 91 beels have been demarcated by concrete
pillars as well as by plants to maintain a sustainable
demarcation for years over. From the sale of fish an
amount of Tk. 373.60 lac have been earned and from that
Tk 131.07 lac have been distributed equally among 2995
Figure 4: Joint Secretary Mr Md. Abdul Malek,
(Development) Local Government Division planting
BUG members of harvested beels. On an average by sale
swamp tree to demark the beel at Sunamganj of fish and through wage earning by harvesting and re-
Sadar
excavation activities a member of BUG is making an
income of around Tk 10,000 per year, and that is increasing with increased
production of beel fisheries.

Major impacts
The beel management activities so far taken
have brought positive changes in beel
resources development and improvement of
livelihoods of the poor fisher community.
The fish biodiversity study recently
conducted by Worldfish Center has revealed
that through systematic management the
production of beel has increased by 11.4%
per hector and total by 19%, the endangered
fish species such as Bacha, Ghaura, Mohashol
Ghora Much, Kalibaus, Rita, Sarputi, Shilong are
getting appeared again. Another livelihood
impact study conducted by the same Figure 5: Fish Sanctuary established in beel by BUG
institute has found that the food crisis for giving shelter to brood fish to increase fish
(food deficit from 1 – 3 months) which was production and fish biodiversity
among 74.7% poor fisher families in 2008 has reduced to 58.4% in 2010. The
access to beel was a dream to poor fisher as it had been traditionally vested in few
local influential people. It was thought that the poor fisher could not pay the lease
fee and thereby their access would not ever be possible. But it has been proved
wrong. The BUGs are regular in paying the lease fee to government account. The
beel user ownership of fisher has largely impacted on the livelihoods of the fishers
as well as the beel ecology, and these are further progressing with their organized
efforts and commitments.

Way forward

However, the access to beel and its management is not an easy task. The process is
often challenged by social disputes, illegal beel encroachment, poaching, and some
other externalities like natural calamities. The project as well as the community is
learning through the process of work and acquiring command over those crises. It is
expected that the community would be more skill in beel resource management
and this system would be a model for effective beel resource management in haor
areas of Bangladesh.