BEEL NURSERY IMPLEMENTATION IN ULIPUR UPAZILA OF KURIGRAM

There were a large number of beel nursery programmes implemented by the Department of Fisheries (DoF) however, the comprehensive assessment of impacts of beel nursery on fish production and livelihoods of poor fishers were hardly done. The study was carried from May 2010 to January 2011in Nirashi Beel at Ulipur upazila under Kurigram district of Bangladesh. The area of the beel in rainy season was about 40 ha consisting of 41 ponds and ditches having an area of 4.004 ha. A pond of 0.44ha beside the beel was selected for nursery implementation and 2.0 kg fish fry of 3 indigenous carp species (rui 0.70kg, catla 0.70 kg and mrigal 0.60 kg) were stocked and reared for 58 days (from 31 May to 27 July, 2010) and produced 0.21 million fingerlings to stock in the beel. After 80 days rearing in the beel subsisting catch from the floodplain was started. Fishes entered into the ditches and ponds were harvested in December-January after dewatering the ditches. Production from both floodplain and ditches were increased after implementation of beel nursery. Subsisting catches from floodplain was found to be increased from 1507kg (50kgha^-1) to 9581 kg (319.50kgha^-1). On the other hand, fish harvest from ditch/ponds were increased from 8020 kg (810kgha^-1) to 6610 kg (668kgha^-1) after beel nursery implementation. There was a wide variety of fishing gears, mostly traditional; i.e., hengajal, cast nets, current jal, hooks, fish traps (darki), lift nets, etc. Most of the full-time fishers used seine nets, fish traps, etc. These gears were mostly operated in groups. A number of fish species were found in the beel throughout the year, but abundant fishes were as Indian major carps, exotic carps, catfishes, snake headed fishes, Thai and local punti, baim and small indigenous species. Indian major carps were found to be the dominant groups (52.93%) both in floodplain and ditches, followed by exotic carps (18.84%), miscellaneous species (14.64%.), sorpunti (7.90%) and snake headed fish (5.69%). After beel nursery implementation, annual income was increased. Number of household having annual income above 70,000.00 BDT was increased from 110 to 186 and annual income within 50,000.00 to 70,000.00 BDT was increased from 183 to 321. On the other hand, annual income earning households from 30,000.00-50,000.00 BDT and below 30,000.00 BDT were decreased from 462 to 290 and 112 to 70, respectively.