Environmental Impacts of Entrepreneurial Fisheries in Barind Tract

Abstract

The gradual increase in fish production of Bangladesh is primarily attributed to the increased inland aquaculture especially from the entrepreneurial fisheries. Entrepreneurial fisheries in Barind Tract has also gained traction in the last several years like the few other top fish producing districts of Bangladesh. In four Barind districts (Bogura, Joypurhat, Naogoan, and Rajshahi), pond area and fish production have increased by 41.39% and 134.25% respectively in 2017-18 than that of 2007-08. In this process, thousands of hectares of the seasonal floodplain, paddy fields, and perennial wetlands have been purposely converted into large fishponds for entrepreneurial fisheries in Barind Tract. Since entrepreneurial fisheries are commercial ventures, these are also capital and input-intensive. Not only the intensity (quantity/unit area) of inputs but also the sheer volume (spread) of entrepreneurial fisheries has made it a new but significant farming system in Barind Tract hence deserves a closer look in terms of environmental impacts. Since a large number of paddy fields have been converted into entrepreneurial fishponds, input use was compared between entrepreneurial fisheries and paddy production in this study through a questionnaire-based survey. Additionally, the faunal diversity, especially aquatic invertebrates (aquatic insects, zooplankton and benthos) and water quality parameters, macro, and micro soil nutrients and heavy metal contents of the bottom sediments of entrepreneurial fishponds were compared with those of natural wetlands. Several experiments were conducted to know the impacts of various pesticides, hormones, and fish toxicants used in entrepreneurial fisheries on aquatic invertebrates and human health. To know the social impact of entrepreneurial fisheries, focus group the discussion was conducted. The current study revealed that the entrepreneurial fishponds were purposely built hence large (average size of more than an acre water area) in size with 5 to 10 feet water depth depending on the season and rearing of large-sized Indian major carps and Chinese carps. Of all the entrepreneurial fishponds, 61.5% of the ponds were located in areas that used to be seasonal floodplain, whereas 23.1% of the ponds were constructed by transforming paddy fields and 15.4% ponds were constructed through the transformation of perennial wetland.