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Abstract:
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"Rajdhala Beel, a 53 ha. lake in northern Bangladesh, was leased from the government by one person who stocked it with carps and permitted local fisher folk to catch the fish if they gave him seventy percent of the catch. Caritas, a national NGO working for ensuring access rights of local poor people, has worked on a process of empowering fishers to carry out their own development and to manage their renewable resources. In 1996, under Community-Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) project and with support from DOF and ICLARM, ninety-three actual fishers of Rajdhala beel were organized under four fishers groups by Caritas. The Group members received training for culture based fisheries management and other income-generating activities. Besides credit, adult literacy programs, plantation, and health and sanitation services were provided to improve their living conditions.
"After a year of mobilization and extension efforts, a noncooperating movement by the organized fishers forced the leasee to surrender his lease back to the district administration one year before completion of his lease. After a great deal of lobbying and pressure from DOF, ICLARM, and finally from Caritas, rights over the beel were handed over to the fishers via DOF for three years. The fishers established exclusive control, stocked carp, and have achieved greater equity in income sharing and transparency in decision making than in previous years.
"The major institutional arrangement in the resource was the formation of a twelve member Beel Management Committee (BMC) incorporating executive representatives from the four fisher groups. The executive committee is elected by the general members. The committee has short-term management plans (stocking) and is responsible for paying government revenue, arranging guarding and team fishing, keeping accounts, and equal sharing of income. Of late 1997, the BMC has stocked different carp fingerlings, the first time stocking by the fishers themselves and introduced guarding and harvesting systems by their group members. In 1997-98, they stocked 2.65 tons of fingerlings with Tk. 170,911 and earned Tk. 407,900 from both stocked and nonstocked fish. In 1998-99, the BMC stocked 6.7 tons of fingerlings and harvested 17.5 tons of stocked fish and 3.5 tons of nonstocked fish and earned over Tk. 852,000. The net fisher income increased Tk. 1262 in 1997-98 to Tk. 4930 in 1998-99.
"The income of the fish sale is equally distributed among the participants. Forty percent of the monies was shared by all the fishers, forty percent was kept to repay the loans, and the remaining twenty percent was accumulated to a bank as savings for future expenses. In 1998, the fishers leased in two small ponds of 0.1 ha. an 0. 34 ha. for raising fry that were later released in the beel and reduced stocking costs. The fishers bought 0.04 ha. of land and built a community center. They also bought 0.036 ha. of land for a carp hatchery to produce fingerlings for the beel and also for sale to the outside.
"The paper discusses the experiences of Caritas of a continuing project in empowering the fishers of Rajdhala beel and how this has influenced sustainable resource management."
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