Baikka Beel: The Sanctuary Bangladesh's Fishers Guard Themselves

Hail Haor is a 12,000-hectare seasonal wetland in north-east Bangladesh whose fish stocks had been fished to collapse, down to roughly 180 kilograms per hectare by 1999. The Baragangina Resource Management Organisation, formed by local fishing communities in 2001, established and now guards Baikka Beel, a 170-hectare permanent sanctuary where fishing is banned year-round so brood fish survive the dry season and restock the haor when it floods. Members also replanted more than 11,000 native swamp trees such as hijal and koroch to rebuild the flooded forest that shelters fish and birds. Waterbird numbers inside the sanctuary rose from about 300 birds of 16 species in 2004 to 12,250 birds of 40 species by 2010, and haor-wide catches for 3,770 fishing households climbed to around 4,000 kilograms per hectare, an annual increment of roughly 2,600 tonnes of fish.