Page 46 - World Aquaculture Magazine - March 2011

44 March 2011
Capture to culture: Community based
dead-river fish culture in Northern
Bangladesh
Nesar Ahmed1
Bangladesh is one of the poorest
and most densely populated coun-
tries in the world, covering an area of
144,000 km2 with a population of 140
million. Around 40 percent of people
live in poverty, with 25 percent of
those classified as ‘extreme poor’ (ODI
2008). Bangladesh is also a highly di-
saster prone land subject to floods and
cyclones. The deltas of three rivers, the
Jamuna, the Padma and the Meghna
have created the land of Bangladesh.
The country is also crisscrossed with
a network of around 250 rivers and
tributaries totaling 24,000 km (Muir
2003). In the dynamics of erosion
and accretion in the rivers of Ban-
gladesh, the sandbars emerging as is-
lands within the river channel, or as
attached land to the riverbanks, often
create new opportunities to establish
settlements commonly known as chars
(Sarker et al. 2003, Rahman and Davis
2005). The chars are new lands formed
through the continual processes of
erosion and deposition by the major
rivers. Emerging chars create new ar-
eas for settlement and cultivation, an
important resource in the land scarce
country of Bangladesh.
Although not as densely populated
as other parts of Bangladesh, the five
riverine districts (Bogra, Gaibandha,
Jamalpur, Kurigram and Sirajganj) of
the northern Jamuna are home to char
dwellers. An estimated more than 3.5
million people live on the chars of the
Jamuna River and surrounding flood
prone areas (CLP 2009). The char
dwellers are some of the poorest and
most vulnerable people in Bangladesh,
with 80 percent estimated to be ‘ex-
Fig. 1. Map of Bangladesh showing the
study area.
treme poor’ (DFID 2001, Chowdhury
2008). The chars are highly vulnerable
to sudden and forceful weather-related
events where floods and erosion dis-
rupt the lives of char dwellers. Floods
damage crops, homes and other as-
sets and hinder access to food, em-
ployment, health care and education
(Brocklesby and Hobley 2003, Haa-
kon 2009). Households in the chars are
more food insecure, thus char dwellers,
including women and children, show a
higher rate of malnutrition than else-
where in the country (HKI 2003). The
constant threat of riverbank erosion
and flooding, combined with a lack
of government services, employment
opportunities and inadequate physical
infrastructure make char dwellers vul-
nerable (DFID 2002). As a result, char
dwellers are considered poorer than
the mainland population. Despite
poor living conditions, households
continue to live in the chars because
they simply have no alternative. Mov-
ing the char dwellers to safer areas is
not feasible because land is too scarce
in Bangladesh.
The majority of the Jamuna chars
are both inhabited and cultivated, with
many char dwellers earning a meager
subsistence living from the land. Most
char dwellers grow crops, raise cattle
and harvest fish for their livelihoods.
The perennial availability of water
in the rivers provides year round op-
portunities for fishing to many of the
char communities (Rahman and Davis
2005). Nevertheless, increased tem-
perature from climate change is result-
ing in higher evaporation rates and
decreased soil moisture with surface
water areas of rivers shrinking in the
dry season. As a result, a number of
dead-rivers have been created in the
char areas. Community based dead-
river fish culture is a new invention of
char dwellers. There is great potential
to improve household food security
through engaging in aquaculture in
dead-rivers.
This article describes the practice
of dead-river fish culture and how this
practice brings social and economic