Women’s role in fish conservation in Bangladesh

Women in Bangladesh are often excluded from fishing, and from the institutions that manage fisheries. Including women in community-based management institutions is crucial for improving their livelihoods.

Fish are a vital source of food for poor rural people. About eighty percent of rural households in Bangladesh catch fish for food or to sell, and people receive about sixty percent of their animal protein from fish. Fishing has traditionally been work for men, but women and children have increasingly become involved in fishing activities.

Research from the Flood Hazard Research Centre in the UK examined three community-based organisations (CBOs) that manage fisheries: a women-only CBO, a men-only CBO and a mixed gender CBO. The researchers compared these in terms of their resource management and the changes they brought to livelihoods and assets.

In Maliate, women are responsible for managing fisheries. However, they have found that they need to include men on the advisory committee, otherwise they struggle to find acceptance of their rules for fisheries management. In Shuluar, a Muslim community, men were opposed to women’s participation in fisheries management. After a year, and pressure from a non-governmental organisation, men allowed women to form some fisheries groups, but they do not make decisions. In Goakhola-Hatiara, men and women are both present on the fishery management committee. The main activity is fish conservation, but the committee also works with the local government to manage water.

Findings from these case studies show:

• Women-led community organisation can improve fisheries management. They are also associated with greater community-wide acceptance of management rules and less conflict over resources.
• Fish species diversity in all three sites has improved after management committees introduced conservation measures. The increased fish diversity in Maliate demonstrates that women are just as capable of conserving fish as men.
• The effectiveness of management committees depends partly on social relationships. This helps to explain why the Shuluar committee is the least effective of the three, as women have little involvement.
• People widely agreed that they now participate in managing common resources, and that poorer households were benefiting. However, less than half of the women interviewed thought that management decisions considered their opinions.
• People agreed that strong leadership is the most important factor in successful management committees. For women, the second most important factor was the need to establish the legitimacy of the CBO for resource management. For men, it was establishing a fund for future activities.

The ability to establish CBOs where women play a leading role is influenced by local community norms and culture. For example, all local people must accept women’s involvement in economic activities outside the home. If a culture does not allow this, it is harder to involve women in resource management.

The researchers suggest that policymakers and organisations planning to support community-based management of natural resources should:

• use processes that enable women to take a leading role
• help both men and women to recognise the uses and relevance of natural resources to women.

Source(s):
‘Gender and local floodplain management institutions – a case study from Bangladesh,’ CGIAR Systemwide Programme on Collective Action and Property Rights Paper No. 57, by Parvin Sultana and Paul Thompson, October 2006

Funded by: UK Department for International Development

id21 Research Highlight: 12 April 2007

Further Information:
Parvin Sultana
Flood Hazard Research Centre
Middlesex University
Queensway
Enfield
Middlesex, EN3 4SA
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 208 4115359
Fax: +44 (0) 208 4115403
Contact the contributor: parvin@dhaka.agni.com

Flood Hazard Research Centre, UK

Collective Action and Property Rights, CGIAR

Other related links:
'The role of gender in managing biodiversity and agriculture'

'Women and environmental conservation'

id21 insights 65 - The importance of fisheries for development