To ensure the safe spawning of the nation's much loved hilsa during its peak breeding period, a 22-day ban, that started on October 07, on catching, selling and transporting the fish has been enforced over a 7,000-km breeding ground in the country. The government's conservation drive, labelled 'Mother Hilsa Protection Campaign 2018', is complemented with an economic incentive or payments for ecosystem services (PES) offered to almost four million artisanal fishermen of 112 upazilas in 29 coastal districts. Under this, each fisherman will receive 20 kilograms of rice. While PES schemes are widely used to conserve natural resources such as forests and watersheds, Bangladesh's programme is a rare example of PES for sustainable fishery management.
There is scientific evidence that effective enforcement measures in critical sites during breeding season could significantly contribute to increasing hilsa production and preserving biodiversity. Conservation and management of hilsa stocks have been prioritised with the aim to expand production and ensure fishermen's livelihoods. This is evident through annual conservation drives every year since 2003-04, creation of hilsa sanctuaries, enforcement of bans, and provision of livelihood support to affected fishermen. These efforts have augmented production substantially - hilsa catch has grown by 150 per cent from 200,000 MT in 2003-4 to 496,000 MT during 2016-17. It is expected that production will exceed 500,000 MT in 2017-18.
It appears that the initiatives in place are working but their potential for greater impact remains untapped. Some recent rigorous research in economics can provide insights that can help disentangle complexities around enforcement implementation and suggest cost-effective paths towards nudging behaviour in the right direction.
Recently, Chile has been facing a similar issue-a global demand for fish and a poorly-regulated domestic market have resulted in over-exploitation of hake fish (or merluza). This is posing a serious threat to marine ecosystems. Like hilsa, hake fish is popular among Chileans, and is critically threatened by over-fishing.
To protect the hake population, the Chilean government passed a ban on fishing and consumption of the hake during the species' September reproduction cycle. Despite this measure, hake population has continued to shrink, due in part to the limited capacity of the government to monitor and enforce regulations against illegal fishing.
Levying fines is a simple way to control behaviours which produce large negative externalities, such as pollution and overfishing. However, they are difficult to implement - fines and bans are often politically and practically costly to enforce.
In partnership with the Chilean National Marine Authority (Sernapesca), Mushfiq Mobarak, a Bangladeshi economics professor at Yale University, USA, and Andrés Gonzalez Lira, a Chilean Ph.D. student at University of California, Berkeley, USA conducted a randomised evaluation to test the impact of enforcement visits to fish markets and a consumer information campaign on the illegal sale of hake fish. The research found that both the information campaign and the enforcement visits by Sernapesca monitors reduced hake availability and consumption.
More interestingly, the research also indicates that fish market vendors who engage in illegal sales quickly learn how to avoid fines by following the pattern of enforcement visits. This was evident from fishermen avoiding sanctions by selling hidden fish from the back (not displaying it openly) when they expected visits by auditors. Intensification of enforcement visits (more than once a week in the same market/outlet) allowed the vendors to learn the auditing schedule faster, and ended up being counterproductive. Keeping the monitoring schedule unpredictable was much more successful.
These results can be extrapolated to hilsa conservation in Bangladesh. It is important to be nimble while carrying out the enforcement visits during this month's ban. Keeping monitoring visit schedule less predictable but at a steady intensity may make it more difficult for traders involved in illegal sale from dodging fines. Sellers will certainly attempt to circumvent the ban in other unanticipated ways. This is why the monitoring authorities need to quickly adapt and learn. For example, the research by Gonzalez and Mobarak found that in the Chile case, the fish vendors started keeping the hake fish on ice, and falsely claim that the fish was caught in August, before the ban started.
The Chilean government information campaign, consisting of letters to consumers, flyers and posters around fish markets, lowered hake-purchase during the ban. Bangladesh has many success stories of information campaigns in rural areas which raised awareness and initiated complex behavioural changes. The widespread dissemination of oral rehydration solution and information about arsenic contamination in water are leading examples. A focused awareness building information campaign on hilsa conservation may be worth trying. We have the legal framework for such measures already in place, through the Protection and Conservation of Fish Act (1950), later amended through the Protection and Conservation (Amendment) Ordinance (1982), and the Marine Fisheries Ordinance (1983).
Based on the Gonzalez-Mobarak research, the Chilean government has decided to scale up and repeat the information campaign rather than the enforcement visits across the country, because the information programme was much less complex for the bureaucracy to implement.
The government's continued success with its annual conservation drive has been attained against the backdrop of severe capacity constraints. This makes the case for smarter, cost-effective and innovative enforcement strategy to be devised for the coming years. At the same time, sensitising citizens of longer term benefits of hilsa conservation and instilling in them a sense of responsibility can set Bangladesh on a higher trajectory of hilsa production and other endangered fisheries.
Farria Naeem and Zeeshan Abedin are Country Economists at the International
Growth Centre, Bangladesh.
farria.naeem@theigc.org ,
zeeshan.abedin@theigc.org