The open water area in Bangladesh is estimated at 4.047 million ha, of which 2.833 million ha are floodplains. The deltaic environment of the nation has contributed much to the inland and marine fishery resources. While marine fisheries make up only 25 per cent of the total national fish harvest of Bangladesh, its inland fish production ranks third in the world after China and India.
But of late, over-fishing and destruction of spawning grounds, unplanned construction of dams and embankments and inadequate laws have been some of the major factors hampering fish production. According to official estimates, 814,414 ha of floodland was made flood-free up to June 1985, causing 44,793 metric tonne of fish loss. Another two million ha of current floodland is slated to be made flood-free which would cause 110,000 metric tonne loss of fish within the next 20 years.
In view of the present scenario, recently, the authorities strongly recommended the introduction of supplementary stocking of waterbodies with fry at the earliest. This method is adopted when the stocking from natural sources, say, through migratory routes of fishes, is hindered. This is to be done only after a field survey - which includes checking the ariel extent of waterbodies, water quality, fish species and production level - is completed.
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