The conservation of ilish continues to be threatened each year by unscrupulous fishermen and traders as well as uninformed consumers – who all defy an annual government ban on catching or selling ilish fry between November and late-June.
Visiting different fish markets in Dhaka and Savar in recent days, the Dhaka Tribune found that ilish fry or jatka – which are less than 10 inches in length – were being sold flouting restrictions, with traders claiming that they were able to sell the jatka without facing any government action.
Jabbar Mollah, a fish trader in Savar’s Nama Bazar, said trucks brought jatka every day to the local wholesale fish market, from where fish traders like him bought the ilish fry and sold them for around Tk250 per kilogram . Traders at the fish market in the capital’s Mirpur 1 said they collected their supply of jatka from the Karwan Bazar fish market, where the Dhaka Tribune also found traders selling jatka in broad daylight.
“A middle-class family can afford to purchase ilish only when they are sized under 10 inches, while the retail fish trader can earn some profit by selling jatka in this season,” Bashar, a fish trader in Mirpur explained the rationale behind breaking the rules.
He also blamed the entire jatka supply chain for flouting the restrictions. “Every fish trader knows about the ban. But how does the jatka come to the market from the river? It becomes available only after fishermen catch jatka in the rivers during the ban.” The government restriction against the catching of jatka stays in effect from November 1 to June 30 – as ilish fry are spawned during October and it takes until May for them to reach full size. According to authorities concerned, anyone found storing, transporting or selling jatkas during the restricted period may face a fine of Tk5,000 and two years’ rigorous imprisonment.
However, fish traders said they have been able to continue selling the jatka without facing any action by law enforcement authorities. Sources at the Department of Fisheries said each year the government offers alternative employment and 40kg of rice to ilish fishermen every month, in a bid to prevent them from going out into the waters to look for ilish fry.
But the Dhaka Tribune’s district correspondents from Barisal, Patuakhali, Barguna, Chandpur and Shariatpur informed that unscrupulous fishermen in those districts have been netting jatka after sunset in order to dodge the eyes of law enforcers.
Admitting that jatka was indeed being caught and sold during the restricted period, the director general of Department of Fisheries, Syed Arif Azad, told the Dhaka Tribune that the production of jatka was increasing despite unscrupulous fishermen’s netting of ilish fry.
Commenting on the lack of initiative to carry out drives against jatka catchers and sellers, the DG said: “The district-level officials of the Fisheries Department are conducting drives against the fishermen netting jatka during the ban. We have to depend on them as we have shortage of resources like law enforcement agencies.
“However, the Ministries of Fisheries and Water Resources are going to organise gatherings next month with the fishermen – where lawmakers will also stay present – to make the fishermen aware about safe spawning of mother ilish and how the lawmakers can play a role in protecting the jatka.” Conservationists, however, also pointed out that the consumers should also share the blame for buying jatka during the restrictions.
The consumers, not only the fishermen, need to be made aware about the issue the most, said Zahid Habib, director of the project titled Jatka Conservation and Alternative Income Generation and Research.
If the consumers turned away from buying jatka, the fishermen would also stop catching ilish from the river confluence, Habib said, adding that if the ilish were allowed to reach Padma River, the country would be able to earn an extra Tk10,000 crore every year. According to a government estimation, if the ban of jatka fishing is strictly implemented, then 50,000 tonnes of ilish resources can be increased every year. For safe ilish spawning and to protect jatka, the government allotted Tk3.72 crore for the 2014-15 fiscal year, according to the Fisheries Department website.
– Dhaka Tribune
