Effective supervision of inland capture fisheries of Bangladesh and its hurdles in managing the resources

Background Bangladesh is basically a low lying flat land country, is endowed with enormous inland fishery resources which contribute a significant part of freshwater fish production. Inland fisheries in Bangladesh contain different types of water bodies’ character e.g. flowing rivers, beel—usually deeper depression in the floodplain, haor—extensive low lying areas comprising several perennial beels and baor or oxbow lakes or dead rivers that have lost their connectivity with the main stream. To assess the status of fisheries resources and current management practices and to test and access alternative local fishery management arrangement that might achieve greater efficiency, equity and sustainability a Community Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) was established in inland fisheries sector in Bangladesh (Sultana and Thompson, 2000). Inland fisheries management is complex by its physical condition and variety of stakeholder’s involvement in resource exploitation process. About four million hectare of open water in Bangladesh are the rivers, beels (permanent and seasonal lakes and wetlands), baors (oxbow lakes), haors (large deeply flooded depressions), and floodplains Abstract