Hilsa fisheries – India, Bangladesh and Myanmar set out road map for management plan

Delegates from Bangladesh, India and Myanmar set out the road map to a management plan for hilsa fisheries, at a regional consultation organized by the BOBP-IGO at the Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Barrackpore (Kolkata), on March 14-15, 2008.

Management plans for two important commercial fisheries – hilsa and sharks – were first mooted at the Second Meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee of the BOBP-IGO in Chennai in February 2007. It was suggested that the management plan for hilsa fisheries should be prepared by Bangladesh and India, and the management plan for shark fisheries by India, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Workshop on monitoring, control and surveillance

A regional workshop on Monitoring, Control and Surveillance for marine fisheries in the Bay of Bengal organized by the BOBP-IGO was held in Chittagong, Bangladesh, on 16-18 January 2008.

Fisheries officials from Bangladesh, India, Maldives and Sri Lanka, plus a few experts from the Coast Guard and the Navy attended the workshop. Mr. P Dutta Chowdhury, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock (MoFL), Bangladesh, chaired the workshop’s inaugural session.

The workshop urged member-countries of the BOBP-IGO to urgently address the issue of MCS for small-scale fisheries, and integrate MCS requirements into fisheries policy.