1. Introduction

1.1 DFID Natural Resources Research

These guidelines are based on research on Asian river systems funded by the United Kingdom Government's Department for International Development (DFID, known until 1997 as the Overseas Development Administration, or ODA).

DFID has supported research on the management of Asian river fisheries primarily through its Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS). The RNRRS is divided into sixteen programmes, covering for example, integrated pest management, forestry, livestock production and aquaculture. The Fisheries Management Science Programme (FMSP) of the RNRRS aims to increase the productivity of the land/water interface through improved management of aquatic resources. The FMSP has been managed by MRAG Ltd since 1990, and supports projects with two broad purposes:

The FMSP has funded three projects on Asian river fisheries, two under purpose 1 (resource management) and one under purpose 2 (enhancement).

The RNRRS includes socio-economic research as a cross-cutting theme in the FMSP and all its other programmes. A special fund is also retained by DFID for the support of socio-economic initiatives which cover more than one of the other sectors. The earliest project covered by this paper was funded through this socio-economic programme.

The Asian region is one of the primary geographic targets of the FMSP and the other RNRRS programmes. Figures recently released on the FAO web site indicate that in 1990, 84% of the world's 28.5 million fishers were concentrated in Asia (9 million in China, 6 million in India and 4 million in Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines together). The percentage of the world's fishers in Asia has risen from 77% in 1970, indicating the increasing demand being placed on aquatic systems in this region. The wide uptake of effective RNRRS management recommendations for this sector may thus provide positive benefits for many millions of the world's poorest fishers.

1.2 DFID's 1992–97 Asian River Research Projects

Between 1992 and 1997, DFID has funded four separate projects looking at Asian river fisheries management. The research was initiated by the following 1992–94 project, funded by the RNRRS socioeconomics programme:

R4791 Poverty, Equity and Sustainability in the Management of Inland Capture Fisheries in South and Southeast Asia

Following this initial project, the theme was taken up by three projects funded under the FMSP, between the years 1994 and 1997:

R5485 River and Floodplain Fisheries in the Ganges
R5953 Fisheries Dynamics of Modified Floodplains in Southern Asia
R6494 An Evaluation of Floodplain Stock Enhancement

These projects are briefly described in the following sections. Further details on the actual research activities involved in each project are described alongside the results in later chapters.

1.2.1 Project R4791 - Poverty, Equity and Sustainability.…

This first project was prompted by the recognition of the importance of inland capture fisheries to the development strategies of Asian countries, and the identification of an information gap in the literature about these fisheries. The study drew together contributions from workers on different disciplines to identify the key factors influencing people's decisions about fishing. The study examined four spheres of assessment:

• STATE- whether the government has the capacity and resources to manage the fishery;
• BIOLOGY- the state of the resources, and their response to fishing;
• COMMUNITY- whether the community can participate in the management of the fishery;
• MARKET- the economic efficiency of the exploitation of the fishery, and the economic relationships around and between fishing households.

The project used a case study approach, involving fieldwork on floodplain systems in three Asian countries, Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia (Table 1.1). Collaborators from each of the study countries were supported by CDS and MRAG in the UK (Table 1.2). A wide range of issues was investigated, including the following questions:

• Are Asian floodplain river fisheries over-exploited?
• Will the degree of over-exploitation increase as population grows?
• Is the open access nature of fisheries a major reason for their over-exploitation?
• Could active management by government control over-exploitation and increase fish yields?
• Are fishers a uniform group, who would benefit equally from management of the fishery?

The ‘poverty and sustainability’ project demonstrated the potential value of an interdisciplinary approach to the management of inland fisheries. This approach has continued throughout the other projects. The project also highlighted the extremely limited knowledge base on which Asian river fisheries are currently managed.

1.2.2 Project R5485 - The Ganges Basin

While the other projects have focused on localised study sites, project R5485 aimed to determine the importance of catchment-wide aspects of river fisheries, in the three-nation Ganges basin. The project involved data collection and collaborators from multiple locations in Nepal, India and Bangladesh (Table 1.1 and Table 1.2). The scientific and technical objectives of the project included:

• Compilation and review of hydrological and catch data from different locations within the Ganges catchment, and
• Illustration of the annual cycle of events relating to hydrology, fishing activity and fish production, showing their importance for the management of fish stocks.

1.2.3 Project R5953 - Fisheries Dynamics of Modified Floodplains.…

Project R5953 was undertaken to build up the primary biological knowledge about hydrologically-‘modified’ Asian river fisheries, particularly with respect to the following questions:

• Where, when and how do different fish migrate around floodplain systems?
• Where, when and how do different fish grow, breed and survive in floodplain systems?
• Where, when and how are different fish caught?

To investigate the impacts of hydrological modifications, the ‘Fisheries Dynamics’ project was designed by its collaborators (Table 1.2) to investigate both a flood control scheme in Bangladesh and a more pristine river system in Indonesia (Table 1.1). Detailed comparisons between the floodplain fisheries inside and outside the Bangladesh flood control scheme, and more generally between the Bangladesh and Indonesian study sites, provided answers to the following questions:

• What are the impacts of flood controls on fish production in modified floodplains?

  Are modified floodplains accessible to migrating fish?
  Is the productive capacity of floodplains reduced by impoundment (for those fish which are able to gain access)?

• How should floodplain capture fisheries be managed?

  How could fish resources be conserved?
  How could the numbers of fish in floodplain systems be increased, to enhance catches?

1.2.4 Project R6494 - Evaluation of Floodplain Stock Enhancement

This project was a desk-based review of large scale enhancement projects, most of which had been carried out on Bangladesh floodplains. The aim was to draw together the lessons, both technical and institutional, of these projects and therefore improve the planning and implementation of future stocking programmes.

The project reviewed in the most detail was stock enhancement component of the Third Fisheries Project in Bangladesh. This was based in Western Bangladesh, with floodplains in three divisions (Rajshahi, Dhaka, Khulna) being stocked. The review also included a range of other enhancement projects based in Asia: The Second Aquaculture Project (floodplains in Northeast Bangladesh); Oxbow Lakes Small Scale Fishermen Project (oxbow lakes in Southwest Bangladesh); A Series of Research Projects in Asian Small Reservoir Fisheries (small reservoirs in Thailand, India, China, Lao PDR); Indo-German Reservoir Fisheries Development Project Kerala India (Reservoirs in India); and, community-based Fisheries Management and Habitat Restoration (Central Bangladesh).

Project documents were reviewed and where possible individuals working on each of the projects were interviewed. The review of the Third Fisheries project also included some data analysis as the project kindly made information available.

The key lessons were discussed under two headings: institutional and technical. It is significant that the technical problems of most of the projects were largely solved, while institutional issues continued to challenge many of the projects reviewed. The review concluded with eleven lessons for the institutional strategy of future projects and only four lessons for the technical strategy. This clearly illustrates where energy and resources should be focused in planning and implementing future enhancement projects.

Table 1.1 Study sites of the four DFID Asian River fishery research projects

Table 1.2 Research collaborators of the four DFID research projects

1.3 The Future Research Programme

These four initial RNRRS projects on Asian river fisheries have all provided baseline data from which the Management Guidelines given in Part 1 have been derived. Further work in Asian river fisheries is currently underway on two projects:

R7042 Information systems for co-management of artisanal fisheries.
R7043 Selection criteria and co-management guidelines for harvest reserves in tropical river fisheries.

Project R7042 is based in Bangladesh (with a second study site in the Caribbean), and aims to develop and test a generic fisheries information management system (FIMS) suitable for significantly different situations. The project will involve the following activities:

• Description of community and government fishery management objectives;
• Development of guidelines for appropriate integrated frame surveys and sampling methodologies;
• Development of a generic data model and a prototype FIMS; and
• Description of the costs of implementing the FIMS at case study sites, and nationally.

Project R7043 is based in Indonesia, and aims to determine how to best use harvest reserves as management tools for river fisheries. In contrast to the general understanding of a reserve as a permanently closed area, the term ‘harvest reserve’ is used to mean a ‘spatially defined area of water, managed with any specified set of technical regulations, intended to sustain or increase the potential fish yield available from existing natural fish stocks, for the benefit of fishers’. This project will identify biological, technical, socio-economic and institutional criteria for the most beneficial use of ‘harvest reserves’, and develop guidelines for their selection and co-management.

Both of these projects recognise the importance of community participation in a co-management approach to floodplain fisheries management. They also indicate a move away from the collection of primary and biological data for these fisheries, and towards the establishment of co-management frameworks, as advocated in the Part 1 Guidelines. To achieve the most effective uptake of project recommendations both of these projects are working directly with the Fisheries Departments in their respective countries as the FMSP's primary ‘target institutes’.