Indiscriminate exploitation of wild prawn postlarvae in the coastal region of Bangladesh: A threat to the fisheries resources, community livelihoods and biodiversity

In Bangladesh, prawn farming is dependent on wild postlarvae (PL) because of inadequate supply of hatchery produced PL compare to the demand. Moreover, farmers prefer wild PL because the survival of wild PL is reported to be much higher than hatchery produced PL. Wild prawn PL fishing have given an employment opportunity for thousands of coastal landless and unemployed poor people in Bangladesh. On the other hand, indiscriminate wild PL fishing has notorious impact on biodiversity in coastal ecosystems due to high levels of by-catch. This has provoked imposition of ban on PL collection to conserve fisheries resources. In 2000, the Government of Bangladesh imposed ban, however, it was not implemented firmly because of the lack of alternative livelihoods for coastal poor. This paper describes the impact of wild prawn PL fishing in coastal Bangladesh and drawn a conceptual framework in relation to management of coastal fisheries resources.