The government has initiated a project to protect local small fish varieties from extinction, which is expected to increase fish production by 1500 metric tonnes in two years.
Under the Tk 36 crore project, the Department of Fisheries will develop 70 water bodies in 39 upazilas of 17 districts to protect and produce 250 types of small native fishes. The fishes, which do not grow over 25 centimetres or 10 inches, are considered as small ones.
Officials at the Department of Fisheries told the agency that they had already identified different dying rivers, haors, canals and low-lying areas for the purpose. Besides, 57 government and 500 private hatcheries would be provided with necessary technical assistance so that they could hatch local small fishes.
They said 400 officials of the fisheries department and 3750 members of different fisheries and social organisations would be given proper training on protecting and managing native fishes.
'The project, to be completed by 2013, is aimed at protecting native fish varieties from extinction and increasing supply of protein from local sources,' director general of the Department of Fisheries, Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman Khan, said.
Former DG of the Department of Fisheries, Md Liakat Ali, however, expressed his skepticism about the outcome of the project.
He said the government earlier developed 400 water bodies for the same purpose, but most of them later did not yield much due to lack of proper management.
Fisheries department official said this time they had incorporated a programme in the project to establish a sustainable management system for ensuring expected outcome from this initiative.
Director of the project, Kazi Iqbal Azam, said the project was also givenspecial importancebecause small fishes were one of the major sources of vitamin-A.
He said producing more small fishes would help protect people from many diseases like iron deficiency, galaganda (hypothyroidism) and night blindness.
According to a report of the Switzerland-based the World Conservation Union, Bangladesh over the years lost 32 small fish
varieties from its native fish resources duemainly to pollution, indiscriminate use of pesticides and other chemicals for crop production and river grabbing.
Source : New Age
