Sustainable Fisheries Management and International Law

Marine Fisheries in Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal

Abdullah-Al Arif

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000528596
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the legal and policy frameworks for marine fisheries management and examines the efficiency of the institutions responsible for the formulation, implementation and enforcement of marine fisheries laws and policies in Bangladesh.

Sustainable management of marine fisheries is a complex, multi-dimensional and multi-stakeholder process that entails sustainable use of marine living resources and conservation of marine biodiversity. Offering a critical analysis to these frameworks that play a crucial role in the conservation and management of fish stocks in areas within and beyond national jurisdiction, this book examines inadequacies and implementation gaps in the legislative, policy and institutional frameworks that contribute to the unsustainable exploitation of marine fish stocks in Bangladesh.

It recommends law and policy reform for conservation and sustainable management of marine fisheries in Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003080541-1

1.1 Introduction

Fish and fishery products play a significant role in global food security and the nutritional needs of people. Fish accounts for 17 per cent of the global population’s intake of animal protein and provides around 3.2 billion people with nearly 20 per cent of their average per capita intake of animal protein.¹ Moreover, the fisheries sector employs around 59.6 million people globally – 40.3 million in capture fisheries and 19.3 million in aquaculture, and nearly 14 per cent of those workers are women.² However, disquieting reports on the decline of fish stocks all over the world have become a global concern. A report on the state of marine fisheries and aquaculture by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) shows that 53 per cent of marine fisheries are fully exploited, 28 per cent are overexploited, 3 per cent are depleted and 1 per cent are recovering from depletion.³ A more recent report shows that the proportion of assessed marine fish stocks fished within biologically sustainable levels declined from 90 per cent in 1974 to 66.9 per cent in 2015, with 33.1 per cent of fish stocks estimated as fished at a biologically unsustainable level (i.e., overfished).⁴ Fishing reduces the abundance of individual fish and overfishing often results in depletion of the whole stock.

Fishing activities also alter and degrade marine ecosystems in many ways.⁵ Fishing eliminates predators or prey from the marine food web and substantially impacts the marine bionetwork.⁶ Fishing gears, such as trawls and dredges, disturb the marine environment by removing biological structures rooted to the seafloor, such as fans and corals.⁷

To minimise the impact of fishing on marine ecosystems, the international community is stressing the need for conservation and sustainable management of marine fisheries resources. To this end, several international fisheries instruments including legally binding multilateral and regional fisheries treaties and non-legally binding policy documents have been adopted. These international instruments promote several approaches/principles of fisheries governance to ensure conservation and management of fish stocks. Along with these, customary international law and decisions by the international dispute settlement bodies on fisheries matters also provide useful insights into fisheries management.

Bangladesh is a coastal state in the South Asia region with a large maritime area considered as one of the world’s richest marine zones in terms of productivity and biological diversity.⁸ Marine capture fishery is an important sector in Bangladesh from both economic and food security perspectives.⁹ Numerous studies show that fisheries resources in the maritime area within the national jurisdiction of Bangladesh have been overexploited¹⁰ (although one study claimed the opposite and argued that marine fishery resources within the national jurisdiction of Bangladesh are underexploited¹¹). Further, there is a serious lack of scientific data on the amount of stock as no survey has been conducted in recent times.¹² Therefore, the stock information on marine fisheries resources in Bangladesh waters is inadequate, making it difficult to provide impetus for adopting conservation and management measures in this area.

On 29 July 2013, the government of Bangladesh approved a proposal to issue 25 new fishing licences for fishing in the sea.¹³ The decision vexed the entire fishing industry and the leaders of the Bangladesh Fish Workers’ Alliance expressed their concern, stating that issuing new licences without assessing the stocks was unwise and politically motivated.¹⁴ This was the third time since 2002 that the Fisheries Ministry has allowed increased fishing in the bay, putting aside the recommendations of an expert committee.¹⁵

Under these circumstances, ensuring conservation and management of marine fishery resources in Bangladesh has become a pressing need. Legal scholars and fisheries scientists frequently highlight the need for effective fishery laws and policies as well as strong institutions to enforce and implement them to ensure sustainable management of coastal and marine resources in Bangladesh.¹⁶ Since the legal, policy and institutional frameworks for conservation and management of marine fisheries in Bangladesh are inadequate and poorly implemented,¹⁷ achieving sustainable marine fisheries is a challenge for Bangladesh.

Several international instruments on marine fisheries provide for the establishment of a cooperative arrangement among the concerned states to ensure conservation and management of transboundary fish stocks that are exploited by more than one state.¹⁸ Since most fish stocks in the bay are transboundary in nature, the state is under an obligation to collaborate with its neighbouring coastal states to ensure conservation and management of these stocks. However, the Bay of Bengal states do not have an effective regional arrangement to collaboratively manage the transboundary stocks in the bay.

In this context, this book investigates the adequacy of Bangladeshi legislative, policy and institutional frameworks for the exploitation, conservation and management of marine fisheries and conducts an in-depth study of Bangladesh’s position in the international and regional frameworks for the conservation and management of marine fisheries resources.

1.2 Conceptual framework of the book

1.2.1 Sustainable development and marine fisheries

The ‘Our Common Future’ (or Brundtland) report defined sustainable development as ‘development which meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’¹⁹ The essence of the concept lies in its simplicity by which the concept becomes applicable almost universally. There are three elements of sustainability – economic, social and environmental – and achieving a practical balance among these three elements is the essence of sustainable development.²⁰

Also, there are many other sector-specific definitions of sustainable development that could be found. For example, the FAO Committee on Fisheries introduced a definition of sustainable development in 1991:

Sustainable development is the management and conservation of the natural resource base, and the orientation of technological and institutional change in such a manner to ensure the attainment and continued satisfaction of human needs for present and future generations. Such development conserves land, water, plant and genetic resources, is environmentally non-degrading, technologically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable.²¹

This definition highlights the need to achieve a balance between the realisation of present and future human needs, including fulfilment of the social and economic demands, and the conservation of natural resources.²² This definition also recognises the need to adopt appropriate management measures to achieve sustainable development.²³

Although in the 1970s and early 1980s, the focus of the sustainable development campaign was on the conservation of non-living natural resources and the control of pollution, the focus has shifted towards the conservation of living resources influenced by the World Conservation Strategy of the IUCN at the beginning of the 1980s and the term ‘ecologically sustainable development’ came into being.²⁴ Fishery is one of the many living resources that can contribute to sustainable development for the entire global community.²⁵

This view has also been reflected in Agenda 21: the Program of Action for Sustainable Development adopted by the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992.²⁶ Chapter 17 of Agenda 21, entitled ‘Protection of the oceans, all kinds of seas, including enclosed and semi-enclosed seas, and coastal areas and the protection, rational use and development of their living resources,’ provides recommendation for sustainable development of the marine and coastal environment and its resources. The chapter begins with an acknowledgement of the fact that the marine environment is an essential component of life on earth and an asset that provides opportunities for sustainable development.²⁷ It also states:

[p]rotection and sustainable development of the marine and coastal environment and its resources … requires new approaches to marine and coastal area management and development … approaches that are integrated in content and are precautionary and anticipatory in ambit.²⁸

Therefore, the modern approaches/principles of sustainability promote an ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of abbreviations
• List of international instruments
• List of national laws
• List of cases
• Acknowledgements
• About the book
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The maximum sustainable yield concept in international fisheries law and its application in marine fisheries management
• 3 The precautionary principle of international fisheries law and its application in marine fisheries management
• 4 Legal status and key features of ecosystem-based fisheries management in international fisheries law
• 5 Legislative and policy frameworks for marine fisheries management in Bangladesh
• 6 Institutional framework for sustainable management of marine fisheries in Bangladesh
• 7 Conservation and management of transboundary fish stocks through regional cooperation: a case study of Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal
• 8 Conclusions and recommendations: key lessons other countries can learn from Bangladesh’s experience
• Bibliography
• Index