Science, policy, and technology form the holy trinity of sustainable fisheries. Research and development, both from public and private sources, have contributed to the global progress. The 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF) provides a clear direction that fisheries policies should be based on the best available scientific information.
The intensity of weather events is increasing day by day in Bay of Bengal and adjacent seas and they are moving off the chart – becoming unpredictable. Our commercially most important fish stocks such as hilsa, Indian mackerel and tuna are also highly vulnerable to climate change. In addition, stock assessment studies from the region strongly indicates, over-exploitation, overcapacity, and the presence of rampant IUU fishing that is further worsening the situation.
“In an interconnected world, all issues are transboundary in nature. This is even truer in the Bay of Bengal region where ecological integrity is very high and risk profiles-environmental, economic or social are similar.”
Despite the fact that multiple regional and international organization are working in the Bay of Bengal region, the regional cooperation is not improving. The analysis carried out by the AsiaPacific Regional Cooperation and Integration Index (ARCII), a broadbased, multidimensional measure of regional integration shows that regional cooperation in environment is actually declining.
Source: Asian Development Bank. Asia-Pacific Regional Cooperation and Integration Index Database. https://aric.adb.org/database/arcii (Access: May 2021).
The Bay of Bengal is an active area of research with 6188 researchers from 82 countries publishing their papers based on their research in the Bay of Bengal region. Analysis of authorship shows that the overwhelmingly dominant trend is north-south collaborative research. There are negligible instances of south-south cooperation. More specifically, cooperation among the BoB rim countries is very weak.
Data Exported on Feb 13, 2022
Creteria: “Bay of Bengal” “Marine Fisheries”
Publication Year: 2012-2022 https://app.dimensions.ai
Illustraon of regional research collaboraon in fisheries: India as a Case
Bangladesh and India together account for over 99% of the global Hilsa fishery. However, research linkages among the researchers from these countries are very weak, as illustrated below (the size of the circle) represents the extent of publications and the thickness of the links represents the extent of collaboration between the respective countries.
A direct fallout of the lack of regional cooperation in science is the absence of a regional voice justifying and incentivizing formal cooperation in areas of fisheries management. Over time, a knowledge gap is also accentuating, as scientists are remaining unaware of situation in their neighbourhood leading to poor policy advocacy.
There are, however, structural reasons for lack of cooperation. One possible reason is funding. Research funding from the developed countries over time have cemented strong collaboration with institutions from the donor country, which are nurtured subsequently through funding from international agencies, which tend to bank on these established networks. Thus inadequate funding mechanism is the cause and effect of the weak research network in BoB region.
Most researchers from the region traditionally work on national and local issues and have built their collaborations within national boundaries. The efforts of regional forums and organizations, such as Asian Fisheries Forum have been positive but certainly inadequate to break the silos, which the scientists have been working in.
“Scientific inputs drive the national policies and it is pertinent that stronger collaboration among the researchers would aid in developing more harmonious regional policies. To this end, the countries need to establish special funds, institute support schemes and forge bilateral and multilateral arrangements to facilitate more collaborative research among the member countries. ”