PARENT SESSION
Thursday, August 10, 1:30-5:00 pm
COS 101 - Fish ecology: habitat, behavior, food webs, and human impacts
L-13, Lobby Level, Cook Convention Center
Presiders: J Saha

Impacts of fishers and gears on biodiversity of fish and prawn in Gawha Beel, Nawabganj, Bangladesh.

Saha, Jayanta K.^*,1, Hasan, M. R.², Habib, M. A.B.¹, Ali, M.M.¹, ¹ Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh² Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN, Rome, Italy

ABSTRACT- Floodplain lakes (locally known as Beel) fisheries of Bangladesh are an important source of animal protein and livelihoods of their rural people living adjacent to those floodplains. The extreme population density of Bangladesh puts major pressures on the beel resources, directly through resources over-exploitation. These overexploited beel fisheries needs closer examination for sustainable management of natural fishery resources. Considering the importance of biodiversity, the present study was conducted in Gawha beel to identify the fishers and gears including assess their catch composition and fish and prawn biodiversity from November 2002 to June 2004 funded by GEF through ARDMCS of Fourth Fisheries Project. Gawha beel is located at Sadar Upazila under Nawabganj district. It is a closed beel. The approximate water of the beel area during rainy season is 500 ha and during dry season is 45 ha. Basin depth ranged from 2.0 to 4.3 m. Seven different types of fishing gear of three categories (nets, traps and wounding gear) were used by two categorized fishers in the beel. Nets are the dominating fishing gear in the beel followed by traps and wounding gears. Species richness of fish and prawn was 38 species and it varied in different gears types using different fishers. The maximum number (38 species) of fish and prawn species was found in the catches of nets followed by traps (37%) and while lowest biodiversity caught in wounding gears (5%). Part –time fishers catch more species (38 species) than Full –time (36 species) fishers. Study revealed that full –time fishers contributed highest in terms of both abundance in numbers (%) and weight (%) were 78.5% and 76.2% respectively due to culture-based closed beel where stocking and fishing managed by the lease holder. In the nets catches, abundance of in fish and prawn was 99.7% in numbers and 98.6% in weight. Subsistence fishers has no access in Gawha beel due to stocked closed beel restricted access of open fishing by the lease holder. The findings of this study are expected to provide baseline information on fish biodiversity in the catch of fishers for sustainable use of beel fisheries resources through community management approach.

Key words: fish biodiversity, gears, subsistence fishers