Badrul Ahsan :
The government for the first time has planned to issue licence to 10 joint venture (JV) companies to catch tuna and tuna-like fishes in deep sea.
The decision has been taken recently aiming to meet up protein deficiency in local market and to earn foreign currencies by exporting access fishes through ensuring optimum utilization of marine resources. To this effect, the Fisheries Department has asked local entrepreneurs to apply for the licence under joint venture with foreign companies having expertise in long-liner operation in deep sea.
The joint-venture initiative was designed to help local operators gain experience, technology and create skilled manpower in the sector.
This is the first time, Bangladesh is allowing long-liners at the Bay of Bengal above 200 metre depth at Exclusive Economic Zone, official sources said.
However, due to poor response in first advertisement, the Fisheries Department has issued re-tender notice in newspapers for the second time.
“We are happy that this time a good number of experienced JV companies have showed interest,” said Ferdous Ahmed, Deputy Chief (Sea) of the Department of Fisheries said.
He said though there is no estimate on how much catch of tuna and tuna-like species would be at the Bay since this is the first-ever initiative.
Long-line fishing is a commercial fishing technique. It uses a long-line, called the main line, with baited hooks attached at intervals by means of branch lines called snoods.
A snood is a short length of line, attached to the main line using a clip or swivel, with the hook on the other end. Long lines are classified mainly by where they are placed in the water column. This can be at the surface or at the bottom.
Industrial tuna long liners are usually large vessel with length ranging between 30 and 70 metres.
The basic requirements of a tuna long-liner, industrial type, are: adequate speed to reach far away fishing grounds, enough autonomy (fuel, water, accommodation of crew etc), capacity for operating in the high sea (sometimes very rough seas at cold temperature).
The other facilities, the long-liners have to ensure, are facility for very efficient freezing storage (to attain extremely cold temperature under 45°C) to keep the highly valued tuna for months together, suitable deck arrangement and equipment, protection of crew from rough weather and sea conditions, machinery for shooting and hauling up long lines quickly and proper storage facilities for keeping the fishing gears and accessories.
These large specialised vessels can stay away from their homeports for 10-24 months.
Ferdous Ahmed said the country’s inability to have access to the deep sea for fishing only adds to the frustration. Deep-sea fishing is a big business, but the country’s wooden boats or trawlers can fish within 20 sqkm (square kilometre) to 40 sqkm respectively.
Contacted, M Shahadat Hossain, Director of Institute of Marine Science and Fisheries at the University of Chittagong, said Bangladesh has recently got membership at Institute of Marine Sciences and Fisheries Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC).
“After getting this membership, Bangladesh is eligible for catching Tuna and Tuna-like species from the Bay of Bengal coast to deep Indian Ocean,” he said.
Tuna fish varieties include skipjack, bigeye bonitos, mackerels, and Spanish mackerels.
Other important tuna-like species include slender Tuna, butterfly kingfish, wahoo, bonitos, Sarda, Spanish, king mackerels, seer fish and sierra etc.
Bangladesh secured sovereign rights over more than 118,000 sq km of maritime territory, 200 nautical miles (NM) of exclusive economic zone, and 354 NM of continental shelf after the verdict in the international court resolving the boundary disputes with neighbouring Myanmar and India, which opened huge scope of catching different types of deep-sea fishes.
