Bangladesh Aims to Harvest Rivers, Lakes

Impoverished Bangladesh is trying to turn its killer rivers and lakes into a source of life-giving food for its millions of malnourished people.

Government officials are pouring millions of hatchery-bred fish fry into the rivers, lakes and streams that characterize the crowded South Asian country. They hope to create an abundant supply of protein when the fish mature one to two years from now.

The government of President Hussain Mohammed Ershad also is trying to persuade Bengalis to eat the tons of saltwater fish that now rot on the country’s beaches or are thrown back into the ocean for lack of buyers.

“Bengalis are known for their love of rice and fish,” said Shameem Ahmed, a marine biologist. “Unfortunately, the rivers, canals, streams and swamps have become almost barren of fish. And our people are generally too poor to turn to beef or other sources of animal protein.”

Pollution from chemical fertilizers used in farming have depleted fish stocks in many of Bangladesh’s rivers and ponds, environmentalists and government officials say.

While the country’s population has swelled by 20 million over the last decade, its annual catch of fresh- and saltwater fish has been constant at about 840,000 tons, government officials say.

Bangladesh produced a bumper rice crop of 19.5 million tons in the 1989-90 fiscal year, just below its total requirement of 20 million tons and its highest output to date. The government hopes to become self-sufficient in rice by 1992.

With the worry over growing enough rice to feed its hungry population seemingly under control, the government has turned its attention to securing an adequate source of protein.

Seventy percent of Bangladesh’s 110 million people live below the international poverty line, crammed into an area the size of Wisconsin. Its per capita income in 1986 was estimated at $113 a year.

Largely Muslim Bangladesh would seem to be a natural site for freshwater fish. It is largely a low plain cut by the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers and is laced with streams, lakes, canals and creeks--the source of frequent fatal floods.

But officials say that in addition to pollution a lack of modern cultivation techniques and the catching of fish fry let loose in streams and ponds before they mature have worsened the shortage of freshwater fish.

“Absence of planned and scientific cultivation, increased water pollution and mass eating of fry are the main reasons for the poor availability of fish in Bangladesh,” said an official of the Fisheries Directorate at the Ministry of Fisheries.

Periodic droughts in the northern part of the country and poor transportation and refrigeration have also taken their toll.

A recent government survey of ponds over an area of 367,000 acres showed that 15% were barren and in disuse.

Of those still being fished, only 5% employed modern cultivation techniques, while 80% relied on inefficient conventional methods, including monsoon flooding to replenish supplies of fish.

Modern cultivation, which requires feeding and breeding of fish, is too costly for most fish farmers. The government plans to make loans to farmers from funds allocated by the World Bank and the International Development Agency.

Government efforts to get people to eat more saltwater fish have met with strong resistance. Many Bengalis, accustomed to a diet of freshwater fish, believe eating ocean-caught fish will harm their health.

“Hence, we have little choice but to stress increasing freshwater fish output,” said Ministry of Fisheries official Abdul Ghani.

Thousands of tons of ocean fish are dumped back into the sea daily or rot on the beach because they cannot be sold.

In September, newspapers reported huge piles of Hilsha fish, a prime catch from rivers during monsoon season, rotted in various regions of the country for lack of adequate transportation.

“The irony is that canned fish smuggled from other countries now floods the country’s supermarkets,” one government official said.