State Minister for Fisheries and Livestock Ashraf Ali Khan Khasru on Monday said government leases haor areas for better management of those areas as well as to encourage fish farming. He said this at a discussion at the Jatiya Press Club in the capital jointly organized by Save the Environmental Movement (POBA) and Bangladesh Resource Center for Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK).
“As an outcome (of giving lease), various sizes of fishes are currently available and the number of species of fishes are gradually increasing in the country,” the minister said. Mentioning the urges of environmentalists for abolishing the leasing system, he said that it would not have been possible for the government to protect the fishes of the haors without leasing.
Speakers at the roundtable urged the government to review leasing system in the Haor region adding that it should be scrapped to ensure the rights of the true fishermen, and to protect the environment as well as biodiversity there. They also opined that fishermen are being affected for the lack of good governance and proper fisheries management in haor areas while excessive fishing, use of illegal fishing nets, insecticides and poison are ruining the eco-system seriously.
State Minister Ashraf Ali Khan Khasru attended the event as chief guest while Poba Chairman Abu Naser Khan chaired the program. Deputy director of the Department of Fisheries Qazi Shams Afroz, and BARCIK coordinator Syed Ali Biswas, among others, were present at the programme.
