Revista de Investigación y Desarrollo Acuícola

Abstracto

Socio Economics and Livelihoods of Beel Fishermen: Cases from NorthWestern Bangladesh

Ahamed GS, Alam MT, Hussain MA, Sultana S

The socio-economic condition and livelihood was studied. Religious status of the study area was more or less equal- 52.66% Muslim and 47.34% Hindu. Educational condition was very poor- 65.96% of the total fishermen are either illiterate or can sign only, the major group (35.11%) of fisherman was young of 21-30 years of age, average household size of the two beels was 4.75, Most of the fishermen family were poor- 79.79% houses were kacha and only 3.72% were pucca houses, 80.85% fishermen use drinking water from other’s tube well, 64.89% fishermen do not use electricity, sanitation condition of the study area is very poor- 51.06% fishermen have no sanitation facility and only 12.77 have pucca sanitation facility, the ratio of on farm and off farm was 1:0.25 indicating greatly dependency of the fishermen’s livelihood on the beels. In terms of well-being ranking, 60.6% belongs to lower class category followed by middle class (34.6%) indicating poor condition of the studied fishermen. The studied fishermen were found to have limited options to adopt strategies for sustenance of their livelihood. Some fishermen have changed their profession to other. Both private and public sectors should work properly, at the same time target group should be motivated sufficiently so that water body could be used maintaining its sustainability.