Impacts of Community Based
Aquaculture on Fishers’ Livelihood in
Bangladesh
Gazi Md. Nurul Islam
Institute of Agricultural and Food Policy Studies
Universiti Putra Malaysia
Contents
• Background
• Community Based Fisheries Management
• Methodology
• Results
• Livelihood Impact
• Conclusions and Policy Recommendations
Bangladesh Fisheries
• Fisheries in Bangladesh is crucial in providing food,
income and employment for millions of people.
• Inland open waters > 4 million ha.
• Producing >1646,000 MT of fish
• More than 70% rural poor fish for food and income
• About 52% households are subsisting below the
poverty line
• Indiscriminate fishing
• Fishers have limited access to different livelihood
assets
Fisheries in Crisis
12,000 jalm ahals
Ministry of Land - owner of all public jalm ahals,
Revenue based management
Short term leasing of fishing rights encourages
over exploitation
• Intense pressure and destructive fishing
•
•
•
•
Results:
• Fish consumption fell 11% (1995-2000)
• Fish catch fell by 38% (1995-2002)
• 40% of freshwater fish threatened with national
extinction
CBFM Goal
improve livelihoods of poor people
dependent on inland aquatic resources,
Capacity building and empowerment for poor
fishing communities ,
improve government-community linkages
in wetland fisheries systems
promote sustainable, equitable and
participatory management contribute to
poverty alleviation in Bangladesh.
CBFM Water bodies
116 water bodies
OPEN BEEL
CLOSED BEEL
Partnership between
DOF,
11 NGOs- 9 field based,
1 media support
1 legal support
RIVER
FLOODPLAINS
CBOs
WorldFish Center
Bangladesh
Key CBFM ACTIVITIES
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Community Based Organizations -130 in 116 wb
Environmental Awareness
Credit Support, Revolving Loan Funds
Conservation
Habitat Restoration
Sanctuary creation and closed season
Stocking carps in semi-closed beels
Equitable distribution of benefits
Alternative Income Generation
Policy
Access rights, lease tenure and value,
Monitoring
Alternative Income Generation
Poorest fisher Groups who depended on the fisheries
•
•
•
•
Skill development
Savings
Credit support
Enhance income and reduce dependency on fishing
Expected Outcomes:
•
•
•
•
•
All CBFM fisher group members received training.
Occupational shift through professional skill development.
Most diversified livelihood.
Income increase for borrowers.
Incomes from fishing increased.
Resource Variability
• Closed beel, Open beel, River sections and
Floodplains
• Closed beel – smaller ,well-defined, reserved for
fishing group members, no subsistence fishing
• Previously managed by cooperative/lease holder
• Conflicts between new BMC and ex-leader
Data Source
• Four CBFM semi-closed water bodies selected.
• Random samples of 418 households were chosen
• Pair of questionnaire based field survey - baseline
in 2002 and impact in mid-2006.
• Face to face interview of sampled households
• socio-economic and livelihood parameters,
• households was separated into 5 categories based
on their poverty and fishing profiles.
Table - Household categories in CBFM water bodies
Category
Household type
Characteristics
I
Poor fisher
Fishes for income or for both income and food, usually
does labouring work, and possesses no agricultural land.
II
Poor–Non-fisher
Does not fish for income, has no agricultural land, usually
does labouring work, but not service or professional jobs.
III
Moderately
fisher
IV
Moderately poor– Does not fish for income, has some agricultural land but
Non-fisher
less than 100 decimals (0.4 ha), or if occupation includes
service or professional job and has thatched house.
V
Better off
poor Fishes for income, has some agricultural land but less than
100 decimals (0.4 ha), or if occupation includes service or
professional job and has thatched house.
May or may not fish for income, has land more than 100
decimals (0.4 ha) and/or has someone with a service or
professional job and has a tin house, or a pucca (concrete)
house.
Map of Bangladesh
Method
• Factor analysis constructing index of social
capital - Trust.
• Multiple regression model is
used to identify the link
between the socio-economic
variables, livelihood assets
and the level of household
income.
Impacts
• Household income increased by 21% from 2002 to 2006
• Income from fishing fell significantly
• Share of fishing income to total household income has declined
from 60% to 35%
• Fishers’ income from farming, transport workers and petty trade
have increased significantly
Fig. Household Income (US$)
1000
US $
800
600
400
29.6%
19.3%
13.3%
22.7%
10.6%
200
0
Poor Fisher Moderate Poor non- Moderate Better off
Fisher
fisher non-fisher
Impact
•
•
•
•
Poorest fishers had a very low initial access to credit
Obtained greater amount of credit from multiple sources
Credit play a significant role to improve alternative income
Cultivated land for poorest fishers have increased by
183%, declined for better-off fisher households.
Fig. Household's annual loans (US$)
US $
100
157.6%
133.8%
59.2%
144.8
80
Land (ha)
120
Fig. Household cultivated land (ha)
106.9%
60
40
20
0
Poor Fisher
Moderate
Fisher
Poor nonfisher
Moderate
non-fisher
Better off
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
- 8%
183%
21%
35%
8%
Poor Fisher
Moderate
Fisher
Poor nonfisher
Moderate
non-fisher
Better off
Social Capital
• households have greater compliance, improved fisheries
management skills and greater access to information
• participation to fisheries management and their influence at
community level has deteriorated
Fig. Change in household Social Capital
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
102%
162%
28%
52%
39%
- 6%
- 16%
Participation
Influence
Compliance
CBFM
Management
Conflicts
Information
exchange
Fishery
know ledge
A multivariate linear regression model for Closed beels
Estimated by the Ordinary Least Squares
Table : Definition for and the expected sign of variables in the regression
Explanatory Variables
Definition
Expected Sign
HHTL
household total land (owned plus rented) in decimal
+
FG
value of fishing gears (taka)
+
TRUST
index of trust variables (scale 1 to 10)
+
FI
household income from fishing in Taka
+
HHOTA
non land assets: Value of household capital assets in Taka
+
HHOCR
credit received from informal sources i.e. friends, relatives in Taka
+
HHSZE
household size (number)
-
HHICR
credit received from institutions (banks, NGOs) in Taka
+
Table : Trust Index: Factor Pattern
Performance Indicator
Factor Loading
Score
Unity
.778
0.366
Trust
.745
0.350
Cooperation
.605
0.284
Total
2.128
1.000
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling Adequacy: 0.853
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity: Approx. Chi-Square10849 df 55 and significance at 1% level
Table : Relationships between livelihood assets and household income in CBFM
closed beels.
Variables
INTERCEPT
Closed beel
Std. Error
t-value
19988.17***
8138.72
12.47***
5.28
2.36
0.249
0.22
1.25
TRUST
144.51
1213.92
0.12
FI
0.2435
0.1786
1.36
HHOTA
6201.598***
545.216
11.37
HHOCR
0.0578
0.2195
0.264
HHSZE
-389.22
690.32
-0.564
HHICR
-0.029
0.256
-0.114
HHTL
FG
N
404
R2
0.339
Adj-R 2
0.322
F-ratio
24.32
df
F-probability
(8, 396)
0.00
Dependent Variable: Annual household income (taka)
*** - significant at 1% level
Concluding remarks and policy
recommendations
• Fisher’s welfare is examined by investigating how the various
types of assets contribute to household income
• Overall income increased but Fishers income from fishing fell
significantly over 2002-2006.
• Closed beel is valuable resource but this trend threatens the
long term viability of community management. Policy makers
should be realistic in imposing high lease fees.
• Poor fishers have significantly increased income from farming,
diversified livelihoods options,
• Poor fishers have greater access to cultivable land and other
assets such as livestock, fishing gear
• The regression results indicate that Household land and other
assets has contributed to household income significantly.
• Fishers have received higher amount of credit from multiple
sources, however informal interest free credit contributed
positively to household income. Increasing access to various credit
sources suggest that the best approach may be to create strong
links between fisher groups and existing NGOs.
• Fishers have changed their attitude, have greater awareness of
fisheries rules and compliance. The government, NGOs and donors
should support a policy to invest in pro poor social capital through
targeted awareness programme.
•
The capacity of the CBOs need to be established as a sustainable
organization, poorest fishers rely on fishing for livelihoods, the
security of access need to be taken as a priority in policy formulation
in culture based fisheries management of Bangladesh