Badrul Ahsan :
Bangladesh has finally got a high-tech ocean research vessel to assess the country’s marine resources within its Bay of Bengal boundary.
The research and survey ship, built in Malaysia, reached the country on Thursday, said a senior official at the Department of Fisheries.
The vessel has been procured under a Tk 165-crore marine fisheries capacity building project, being implemented with support from the Islamic Development Bank and the Malaysian government. The high-tech 37.8-meter-long multipurpose research vessel cost Tk 65.5 crore.
Officials said the research vessel, equipped with the latest technology for fisheries and other oceanographic research, will play a tremendous role in managing the marine resources well and improving the lifestyle of around 5 lakh people living in the country’s coastal areas who depend on fishing.
Talking to The New Nation, Director General of the Department of Fisheries Syed Arif Azad the Fisheries Department will soon launch an initiative to assess the fisheries and other marine resources within its sea boundary.
According to experts, although Bangladesh has a plenty of marine resources within its sea area, the country is yet to take any effective step to explore its potential over four years after the much-celebrated verdict of a UN court in Hamburg on 14 March 2012, which allocated around 111,631 square kilometres of sea area to Bangladesh in a dispute with Myanmar.
Then in July 2014, Bangladesh also gained about 19,467 square kilometres of maritime area (of the total 25,602 square kilometre-disputed area) from an ITLOS verdict in its case against India.
“The two verdicts have paved the way to tap the marine potentials. And procuring a research vessel to assess marine resources is the first step towards harnessing that,” said marine and fisheries professor at Chittagong University Dr Md Maruf Hossain.
He said since the Fisheries Department has no proper assessment of marine fishes right now, fishermen are indiscriminately catching sea fishes, making many fish species and aquatic animals vulnerable.
“After the assessment of marine resources, we can know about the quantity of marine fishes, their breeding grounds and which species are vulnerable,” Dr Maruf.
The assessment will help identify the mother fishes, the trend of their movement and where they release eggs, which will contribute towards boosting marine fish outputs, he said.
Dr Md Abdul Wahab, a fisheries professor at Bangladesh Agriculture University, said the quality of sea water and seawater pollution can also be assessed with the research vessel.
There has been no assessment of fish resources since the one done in the 80s, Dr Wahab said, adding it is necessary to assess the resources for taking proper plans for their management.
According to them, the research vessel will also help the Department of Fisheries increase its capacity as well.
Officials they will be able to conduct surveys on marine resources for the next 20-25 years uninterruptedly with the ship.
The Bay of Bengal is full of biological diversity, diverging amongst coral reefs, estuaries, sea fish and mangroves. It is one of the world’s largest marine ecosystems.
