No abstract

Aquaculture in pond and floodplain was accelerated in Bangladesh in the 90s as a means of better production and income which was backed by the donor agencies, NGOs, and the government of Bangladesh. The commercial actors are involved in the aquaculture systems due to the availability of production technologies and inputs. As a result, fish production has been gone up but poorer households become marginalized due to the commercialization of the production systems and poor access rights to the common pool resources. This paper aims to explore how the commercialization and privatization of floodplain aquaculture become the cause of the sufferings of the resource-dependent people and biodiversity loss in the rich floodplains. Seasonal floodplains were an important source of livelihood for small-scale fishers (SSF), whose livelihood has been destroyed and affected their overall wellbeing. Influential people hold control of the common pool resources and restricted the access of the SSF to manage the aquaculture. So, a new group of poor has emerged and their sufferings also got worse. Together with growing inequalities, natural resource degradation is creating social vulnerabilities. However, no development initiative will ever be sustainable and entirely effective if the existing socio-ecological setting is not considered. Bangladesh government should take robust attempts to revisit fisheries policies to ensure livelihood resilience of fisheries resource-dependent community by managing the access rights of the common pool resources.