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Social capital, community based management, and fishers’ livelihood in Bangladesh
Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 173e180
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Ocean & Coastal Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman
Social capital, community based management, and fishers’ livelihood in Bangladesh Gazi Md. Nurul Islam a, *, Tai Shzee Yew b, Nik Mustapha R. Abdullah b, K. Kuperan Viswanathan c a
Institute of Agricultural and Food Policy Studies (IKDPM), Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia c College of Arts and Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 UUM Sintok, Kedah Darul Aman, Malaysia b
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Available online 5 November 2010
This paper examines the impact of Community Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) on fishing households’ welfare in Bangladesh. It analyses how the various types of livelihood assets contribute to fishers’ household incomes. The study found that fishers in CBFM project areas have improved their access to different assets including social, human, physical, financial and natural capitals. The regression results show that social capital contributed significantly to household income, indicating that social factors play very important roles in poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. Future poverty alleviation policy options need to give priority to investments in human, physical and natural capital assets. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Social capital and social networks are increasingly viewed as key components in ensuring desirable social and economic outcomes. Community based approach is gaining importance in improving social relations among the users of natural resources. In Bangladesh, Community Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) projects have been implemented since 1996 in 116 waterbodies to develop alternative fisheries management where the responsibilities of managing the fisheries resources are shared by the government, non-government organizations (NGOs) and the fishers.1 A total of 130 Community Based Organizations (CBOs) have been formed in these waterbodies as there are more than one CBOs in some large waterbodies. 1.1. Livelihoods, social capital and CBFM in Bangladesh In Bangladesh, inland fisheries plays an important role in providing employment for millions of people, supplying fish for consumption and generating cash revenues from sales of fish. The generated incomes are important in order for fisher households to
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ60 3 8947 1093; fax: þ60 3 8947 1077. E-mail address: [email protected] (G.M.N. Islam). 1 The partner NGOs are mixed in sizes and characteristics. They include large national NGOs such as BRAC, PROSHIKA and international NGO such as Caritas. The NGO effort has largely focused on institution-building: organizing fishers into groups, getting access to resources, providing credit, enabling them to design and carry out their own management measures for resource management. 0964-5691/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2010.10.026
have access to other goods and services such as health care and education. Majority of fishers in Bangladesh generally posses limited capital assets, they are landless, they lack fishing assets and other productive capitals and their livelihoods are crucially dependent on access to the resource systems (World Bank, 2002).2 Under the traditional leasing system for public waterbodies, the management control very often falls into the hands of the rich and influential leaseholders. They exploit the fishers by appropriating maximum share of benefits from fisheries (Siddiqui, 1989; Ahmed et al., 1992). Moreover, increasing demographic pressure on resource systems has resulted in an increase in capture attempts, leading to declining production and income from fishing. Poverty can be expressed in ‘income’ and ‘non-income’ components. The non-income component of poverty is made up of people’s capabilities, vulnerabilities and participation in making livelihood decisions (Walmsley et al., 2006). Access to various capital assets is important in determining the livelihoods of fishers. Assets, as defined in terms of the rural livelihood framework include natural, human, physical, financial and social/political assets (Ellis, 2000). The majority of poor fishers are in a disadvantaged position with respect to access and control of these assets. A single category of assets on its own is not sufficient to yield the varied livelihood outcomes that people seek (Haan and
2 Approximately 45 percent of the country’s population is living in extreme poverty and a large proportion of them are fishers. More than 70% of households’ fish in the floodplains either for income or food (Minkin et al., 1997; Thompson et al., 1999).
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Lipton, 1999; Bird et al., 2000). Access to various capital assets is important in determining the livelihoods of fishers in Bangladesh. The capital assets provide benefits to those who utilize them. Social assets, in contrast, though benefit individuals, is expected to produce benefits collectively (Uphoff and Wijayarantna, 2000). Social assets can be categorized into three types: bonding, bridging and linking but the boundaries between these vary across contexts (Krishna, 2002; Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). Bridging and bonding social assets are both essentially horizontal relationships involving people of more or less equal social standing. In a society where a social group is isolated from another group with different characteristics, the resources of the stronger group will not be accessible to the weaker group. In such a situation the weaker group will lack sufficient social assets for bridging but will be able to bond. Linking social asset is concerned more with vertical relationship connecting people to key political agents, institutions and power bases. Access to linking social asset is clearly vital to the well being of vulnerable households, especially in poor countries and communities (Narayan, 2000). In the existing socio-cultural setting in Bangladesh, the role of the elites for the implementation of fisheries management cannot be ignored. The elites and the politicians have established a strong position in the local administration in which they can exercise power in controlling local resources including fisheries. Domination of elites can be reduced through empowering poor people and building social capital. Fisheries management approaches based on centralized government intervention (leasing of public waterbodies) have proven inadequate to address the poverty problems present in the fishing communities in Bangladesh. The main thrust of the CBFM was to empower the poor fishers through organizing fishing communities and providing them with administrative, training and financial supports. The organized CBFM fishers become crucial in determining their access rights to fisheries resources and improve their livelihoods. The CBFM partner NGOs play an important role in organizing poor fishers. They have organized training courses for fishers to improve their awareness on better use of fisheries resources (waterbodies), group activities, build leadership, and interact with other stakeholders. These training programmes were found very useful for the poor and illiterate fishers in building capacity to manage their resources with support from the NGOs and the government. These NGOs follow different approaches and strategies in line with their organizations’ visions and missions as well as to fit in with local circumstances in the CBFM sites. For examples, Banchte Sheka focuses on women issues in fisheries, Centre for Natural Resource Studies (CNRS) focuses mainly on the development of community based fish habitats restoration, FemCom focuses on media activities; and Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) provides legal support to the CBFM fishers. CBFM organized groups obtained access to the waterbodies through 10 year leases from the Ministry of Land. They introduced local rules in their own fisheries management. The main actions emphasize by the CBFM organizations in all types of waterbodies are conservation of brood fishes, reduction of fishing pressure and raising of economic benefits for sustainable fishers’ livelihoods. It is not clearly understood whether the institutional arrangement under CBFM is a viable alternative for fisheries resource management in Bangladesh. This paper presents the impact of CBFM on fishing households’ welfare by investigating how the various types of livelihood assets contribute to household incomes. Specifically in this paper, a livelihood asset framework and a regression model are used to compare the livelihood assets between fishing communities with and without CBFM; and to examine the factors, in particular the social assets in affecting the welfare of CBFM and non-CBFM fishers’ households.
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the methodology and data sources while the household’s profiles and the impact of CBFM are described in Section 3. A regression analysis is also presented in this section to examine the relationships between households’ income and other livelihood assets. The paper concludes with some policy recommendations for future inland fisheries management. 2. Methodology 2.1. Measurement of social capital and other variables Most of the work on social capital emphasizes the different ways of mobilizing social relationship from within civil society to manage various types of resources and to engage with other actors. Such relationship can play important roles in securing access and defend private as well as group natural resource property rights, and thus seclude those resources from other users. They can also lead to more efficient use of resources through fostering coordinated action (Lam, 1996). A number of literatures indicate that fishing communities that have developed effective social norms and collective control over harvesting have increased returns from fishing while helping to ensure resource sustainability (Grafton, 2005). Social capital can be measured through the involvement of resource users in community based management schemes. Improving fisheries management is responsive to the local situation, resource users, empowerment of fishers, capacity building and access to information. This can be measured by constructing a social capital index using several variables as in (Krishna and Uphoff, 1999; Grootaert and Narayan, 2004). A common method for measuring social capital is the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) which allows the reduction of a number of variables into one or fewer variables. PCA is based on the multiple correlation principle and can explain the variance of the dependent variables. The principal component selects factors with eigenvalues greater than one and they are considered significant. Pn Indices can be constructed using the formula I ¼ i ¼ 1 Wi Xi where, I ¼ the weighted index; W ¼ percentage contribution of each selected variable as the weight; X ¼ the value of each variable; P and ¼ the summation sign. Household livelihood assets in this study include the social, physical, human, financial and natural assets which are measured by a set of variables as defined in Table 1. A set of five variables were used to construct social capital index. Similarly, a set of five variables were used to construct the physical capital index. For the human capital index, financial capital index and the natural capital index, the set of variables used in their construction are seven, two and two respectively. 2.2. Regression model Multiple regression analysis is used to examine the relationships between household income and various livelihood asset variables. The equation is specified and estimated separately for the CBFM project and non-CBFM control sites by using the Ordinary Least squares technique. As shown in equation (1) the explanatory variables included in the model consists of those measuring various asset endowments and demographic characteristics of the households. The dependent variable is the annual household gross income from different sources.
Y ¼ a þ b1 SCþ b2 PCþ b3 HCþ b4 FCþ b5 NCþ b6 CUL þ b7 AGE þ b8 HSþ b9 EMPþ b10 ATCMþError;
(1)
Where, Y ¼ household annual income (taka), SC ¼ household
G.M.N. Islam et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 173e180 Table 1 Definition of variables for various capital index construction. Social capital index Membership ¼ membership in organizations (5 ¼ most important; 1 ¼ less important) Influence ¼ influence over access to resource (5 ¼ strong influence; 1 ¼ no influence) Participation ¼ participation in decision making (number) Knowledge ¼ fisheries management knowledge (5 ¼ full knowledge; 1 ¼ no knowledge) Trust ¼ level of trust (5 ¼ strongly agree; 1 ¼ disagree) Physical capital index Housing ¼ value of house structure (Taka) Latrine ¼ value of water sealed latrine (Taka) Capital assets ¼ value of a set of household assets (Taka) Homestead land ¼ area of homestead land (ha) Fishing equipment ¼ value of equipment (Taka) Human capital index Education ¼ education of household head (years) Age ¼ age of household head (years) Household size ¼ number of household members Employment ¼ total employment days of household members Attendance ¼ participation in community meeting (number) Training ¼ participation in training (number) Information ¼ access to fisheries information (number of sources) Financial capital index Credit ¼ amount of credit received by household (Taka) Sale of assets ¼ value of asset sold by household (Taka) Natural capital index Cultivable land ¼ cultivable land owned by household (ha) Fishing area ¼ area of fishing by households (ha)
endowment of social capital (index) PC ¼ household endowment of physical capital (index) HC ¼ household endowment of human capital (index) FC ¼ household endowment of financial capital (index) NC ¼ household endowment of natural capital (index) CUL ¼ size of household cultivable land (ha) AGE ¼ age of household head (years), HS ¼ household size (number), EMP ¼ employment days of household head (days), ATCM ¼ community meetings attended by household head (number), a, b1 to b10 are parameters to be estimated. 2.3. Data and sources Data were obtained from surveys carried out in four CBFM project waterbodies and four non-project/control waterbodies in two selected regions in Bangladesh from February through May 2005. Wherever applicable, information from secondary sources has also been used. Two types of waterbodies have been selected for this study: semi-closed beel and open beel.3 Random samples of 30 households were chosen from each of the 8 selected waterbodies, giving a total sampled household of 240 (Table 2). Waterbodies were selected randomly from the regions where both CBFM project and non-project waterbodies are located. A census of households was conducted by the WorldFish Center in each of the project and control waterbody areas to gather information on demographic, land holding size, fishing assets, occupational distribution and extent of fishing for livelihoods. The survey in this study covered various aspects of the household economy, including demographic information, household income, sources of income, involvement with income generating activities, lending and borrowing practices, access to different
3 Beels are the deepest part of the floodplains, often with a permanent area of water. Closed beels are relatively “smaller” and well defined waterbodies (may be above or below 8 ha, but are generally not more than 50 ha during the monsoon) with few outlets. Open beels are relatively “larger” and are extensively used for capture fisheries or for the purpose of subsistence fishing by a wide range of stakeholders.
175
Table 2 Sampled waterbodies and households. Waterbody
Project/ Area (ha.) Total Beneficiary Sample control min-max household households (no) households
Ashurar OB Project Chapandaha CB Project Hamil CB Project Dubail OB Project Shal nodi OB Control Doriar CB Control Shampur CB Control Nabagia OB Control Total sample households
100e350 26e100 16e20 21e45 35e84 32e80 35e40 16e40
2466 578 956 1211 1320 535 480 1973
527 57 139 176 na na na na
30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 240
capital assets, social linkages, fisheries resource use, fishing involvement, fishing access, and NGO support. 3. Results and discussions 3.1. Household income Households in the CBFM project area have higher income level compared to those in the non-CBFM control sites. The percentage of the lowest income households is smaller (18%) in the project sites compared to those in the control sites (30%). Combining both closed and open beels, it was found that a higher percentage of project households are in the higher categories of incomes (>20,000 Taka) compared to those in the control sites (Table 3). Several recent studies in Bangladesh (Thompson et al., 2003; Islam and Dickson, 2006) also documented improvements in household incomes of the CBFM households. 3.2. Fishing income Increase in fishing income is a result from improved fisheries management. The study found that households in the CBFM project areas have become more dependent on fishing for both subsistent consumption and income compared to those in the control area (Table 4). Household’s income from fishing was higher in the CBFM project areas compared to the non-CBFM control area. Fishers who fish for own consumption and who sell fish for income in the CBFM project areas have increased the amount of catch compared to their counterparts in the non-CBFM control areas. The study found that fishers fished in more than one waterbodies. CBFM project fishers have access to the project waterbodies and other non-project waterbodies. The fishing access of the CBFM fishers was much wider (12 ha) compared to those for the non-CBFM control areas (8 ha), resulted in fishing income increases for the former. CBFM fishers have increased their awareness and had more incentive to efficiently manage their own fisheries. In the closed beels, fishers were engaged in culturing fish. In the open beels, CBFM fishers introduced improved fisheries management practices Table 3 Fisher households by annual income categories, 2005. Income category in Taka
CBFM project
Total (%) Non-CBFM control
Closed Open beel (%) beel (%) <20,000 Taka 20,000e29,999 Taka 30,000e39,999 Taka 40,000 Taka and above All
Total (%)
Closed Open beel (%) beel (%)
20 20 32 28
17 30 17 37
18 25 24 33
30 22 17 32
30 20 22 28
30 21 19 30
100
100
100
100
100
100
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Table 4 Income and other contributions from fishing, 2005. Contributions
For food (% household) Both income and food (% household) Fishing area (hectare) Fishing income (Taka) Fish consumed (Taka)
CBFM Project
Table 6 Significant variables in the construction of physical capital index. Non-CBFM Control
Performance indicator
Closed beel
Open beel
Total
Closed beel
Open beel
Total
55 80
63 68
59 74
45 53
45 83
45 68
14 7219 2552
10 6193 2044
12 6706 2121
5 3404 1257
11 5282 2276
8 4343 1908
such as creating fish sanctuaries, closed season (fishing ban for 3 months) during fish breeding seasons and imposed restriction on destructive gear use. Closed beels are relatively smaller and easier to manage by the fishers. Despite the well organized fishers and the beels being clearly bounded, CBFM was not successful in some closed beels due to local conflicts. However, CBFM was successful in Ashurar beel one of the largest open waterbodies in terms of area (100e350 ha) and community (17 villages). The chairman of union parishad (local government representative) has supported the Ashurar beel Management Committee in implementing local fisheries resource management rules in the beel. The BMC has successfully protected the sanctuary and strictly followed other management rules with the cooperation of the local community. Fishers in Ashurar beel, have increased income from fishing. This indicates that the success of CBFM mainly depends on the local socio-political conditions and institutional arrangements.
3.3. Social capital index Social capital variable is measured as an index using the PCA method. The most important variables constituting the social capital index in order of factor loading values are: membership in organizations, participation in decision making, level of knowledge and influence on access to resources (Table 5). The most dominant variable in the social capital index is households’ membership in organizations (with a loading value of 0.693). The majority of the fisher households have affiliation with production oriented organizations such as NGOs, cooperative societies and local credit management societies. The reason for the fishers not involved actively in social, religious and cultural organizations is mainly due to their poor economic conditions. Their primary concern is to look for work and generating income to fulfill their daily basic necessities. Good leaderships were found among the communities in three out of four project sites. Active participation of fishers in CBFM allows them to elect the leaders and executive members of the Beel Management Committee. Through CBFM, fishers have participated in stocking and other production related activities such as safe guarding and harvesting fish. This has been controlled through surveillance provided by the fishers in the project sites. It has been observed that there is improvement in fishers’ confidence in fish culture technologies. Table 5 Significant variables in the construction of social capital index. Variables Membership in organization Participation in decision making Level of knowledge Influence over access to resources
Factor loading 0.693 0.685 0.622 0.610
Value of house (Taka) Area of homestead land (decimal) Value of sanitary latrine (Taka) Value of durable assets (Taka)
Factor loading 0.748 0.744 0.697 0.684
The next important variable in the social capital index is the active participation of fishers in decision making on fisheries management rules. These fishing restriction rules introduced by the management committee were strictly obeyed by the fishers. The level of knowledge is also important in constructing the social capital index (0.622). Low level of formal education is observed among the fishing communities. Partner NGOs conducted awareness campaigns and training programs on leadership, accounting management, and production activities and fisheries management to improve fishers’ level of knowledge. Fishers’ influence on resource use (0.610) is the last important factor in the construction of the social capital index. The BMCs with better and greater cooperation from stakeholders and local government representatives have successfully prevented outside attempts to encroach into the CBFM open and closed beel sites. The BMCs can decide on who, when and where to fish, and thus are able to control over fishing in the project waterbodies. 3.4. Physical capital index Generally many fishers in Bangladesh are landless or functional landless.4 Physical asset endowment is a good indicator of income, welfare and livelihood. Physical asset includes housing materials, area of homestead land, sanitary latrine, productive assets and fishing equipments. In constructing the Physical Capital Index using the PCA method, variables with significantly high loading scores are housing materials, area of homestead land, sanitary latrine and productive assets (Table 6). The study found that organized fishers have improved their physical assets over the last couple of years such as using better construction materials and have flush sanitary latrines in their houses. The study showed that households’ average area of homestead is 0.05 ha. Most fisher households do not own any cultivable land. However they cultivate land owned by others either through sharecropping or mortgage arrangements. More and more fishers in all survey areas are engaged in high-yielding variety (HYV) boro rice cultivation. This indicates that fishers are able to diversify their livelihood options in the agriculture sectors. The health and sanitation condition is generally poor in rural areas. They have limited access to health services. Very few households have water sealed latrine. As a consequence, they suffer from diseases such as diarrhea, diabetes, and peptic ulcer. The partner NGOs have provided human development training to the organized fishers. The CBFM participants have greater awareness of health and sanitation. NGOs have provided sanitary latrines at low cost to their group members. The CBFM fishers have more water sealed latrines than those in non-CBFM areas. These are successful efforts that contribute to the quality of life improvement among the fishers in the rural villages. The productive household assets (0.684) such as livestocks, rickshaws, vans, shallow tube wells, bicycles, watches, radios and television sets have increased as the level of household income
4
Household own less than 0.2 ha of land.
G.M.N. Islam et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 173e180 Table 7 Significant variables in the construction of human, financial and natural capital Indices. Variables
Social Capital 8
Factor loading
Human capital index: Education level (year) of household head Financial capital index: Amount (Taka) of credit received by household Natural capital index: Area (hectare) of fishing by household
Control
4 Physical Capital
0.615
rises. These assets could be converted into cash income and play important roles as safety nets during unemployment and/or occurrence of natural crises such as floods or cyclones which results in losses of fish and other crops.
Project
6
0.704 0.690
177
2
Human Capital
0
Natural Capital
Financial Capital
Fig. 1. Scores for access to various capital assets by fishers’ households in the project and control sites.
3.5. Human, financial and natural assets Fishers in Bangladesh are generally illiterate with limited access to formal education. Human capital includes age of household head, education of household head, number of household members, total employment days, attendance in community meetings, participation in trainings, and access to information. The level of formal education is the only significant variable in the human capital index (Table 7). The role of financial capital is very important in explaining fishers’ livelihoods. Fishers have limited access to financial capital and are unable to invest in productive sector to generate income. Financial capital includes variables such as amount of credit received and income from asset sales. The only significant variable with high loading value in the construction of financial capital index is the amount of credit received. The land and fishing ground are considered as natural assets to the fishers. Fishers are generally landless, but they have traditional fishing access to public floodplains or waterbodies owned by private landowners. The area of fishing is the only significant variable in the construction of natural capital index. Fishing access to such fishing grounds depends on the extent of social linkages with others in the particular community. 3.6. Impact of CBFM The impact of CBFM project on the welfare of poor fishers is assessed by examining the improvement in their level of livelihood assets. The households in the CBFM project areas have greater access to the livelihood assets compared to those in the non-CBFM areas (Table 8). Among the assets, the magnitude of social capital and financial capital has increased in the CBFM project areas compared to the non-CBFM areas. However, there are no significant differences in the magnitudes of physical capital, human capital and natural capital, even though the mean score for each of these livelihood assets is higher for CBFM project areas as indicated by the positive mean difference score in Table 8. As shown in Fig. 1, the gaps Table 8 Mean values of household assets, project and control areas. Index
Social capital Physical capital Human capital Financial capital Natural capital
CBFM project
Non-CBFM
CBFM eNon-CBFM
Mean score
Std. deviation
Mean score
Std. deviation
Mean difference score
4.024 5.788 2.421 6.038 2.595
2.046 6.403 3.281 5.648 2.589
2.796 5.269 2.153 3.829 1.768
1.313 6.909 3.217 4.121 2.504
þ1.228 þ0.519 þ0.268 þ2.209 þ0.827
between project and control areas in terms of social capital and financial capital are significantly wider. Under the CBFM project the government has transferred the use rights of waterbodies and provides administrative support to the fishers. The NGOs on the other hand have stationed full time staffs at the village level to facilitate coordination between the government and the fishers. Increased participation of the organized fisher’s in decision making has contributed to better management of the fisheries and improved livelihoods. In addition, fisheries management has improved through the setting up of the Beel Management Committee (BMC) where the executive members and leaders are elected through voting by CBFM members. Through CBFM, the fishers have improved social linkages that enhance their ability to gain economic power and livelihood security. Cooperation is easier in communities with a substantial stock of social capital (Coleman, 1990; Putnam, 1993). The households in the project sites have increased their participation in community affairs can influence fisheries management and show greater compliance with local fisheries rules. The fishers in the project sites have been able to resolve social conflicts more quickly than those in control sites. The participants of CBFM project have received higher amount of credit (financial assets) as shown in Fig. 1. The study shows that higher number of households (85%) in the project area received credit compared to the households in the control area (75%). The project households also received higher amount of credit (Tk 7456) than those in the control sites (Tk 5058) in 2005. The credit received was utilized for various productive purposes. However, almost all the households receiving credit used part of it for buying food, medical treatment and repair houses during natural disaster crisis periods such as typhoon and flooding. The participants received interest free loans (from CBFM) to pay lease fees for the waterbodies and to meet other fisheries related costs. Households derived their income from a wide range of sources in project and non-project control areas. Day labouring is still an important livelihood option for the households. Substantial increases in self employment such as rickshaw pulling and petty trading have been reported by households in the project areas. Higher percentage of project households in both the open and close beels are in the high income categories in comparison to those in the control sites. These results indicate that the CBFM project has contributed positive benefits to the participants. The level of physical asset endowments is an important indicator of household income and welfare. Generally poor fishers possess few productive assets. They sell their assets during the period of crisis since they do not have savings to fall back to during this period. The households in the project areas have increased slightly their ownership of productive assets such as livestocks, rickshaws, vans, water pumps, bicycles, watches, radios and television compared to
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those in the control areas. These assets can be used to generate income during the crisis period in the CBFM areas. The CBFM participants are now able to invest greater amount in house repairs, health and sanitation showing that their quality of life has improved compared to those in the control areas. There was no significant difference in formal education attainment of household head between the project and control areas (Fig. 1). The participants in the project areas attended human and skill development training courses. The partner NGOs have organized exchange visits between the CBFM sites. The fishers reported that the visits were very useful for enhancing their practical experience. The government has undertaken various programmes recently such as “Education for All” and “Food for Education” to enhance education but the impact of these programmes has not been fully reflected yet in this study. Land is the important but scarce natural capital for the fishers. Fishers primarily rely on the vast floodplains for their livelihood. Access to the fishing areas is also determined by the extent of social interactions and relationships with local elites. During the monsoon seasons, all inundated lands (government and private) are treated as fisheries grounds. Although various property rights exist in Bangladesh’s wetlands, fishers are allowed to fish in the private lands during the monsoon seasons. The fishers in the project areas have established trust in the rural community and they are able to negotiate with the landowners to fish. The CBFM fishers have increased their access to the fisheries compared to those in the control areas (Fig. 1). 3.7. Regression analysis results The results of the regression analysis for the project and control sites are presented in Table 9. In the regression analysis, the household annual income was hypothesised to be a function of household asset endowments and household characteristics. The
results indicated that social capital (SC), employment (EMP) and natural capital (NC) are important predictors of household income in the project areas while human capital (HC), household size (HS) and age of household head (AGE) are significant in the control areas. The coefficient for the social capital is positive and is significant for the project area (Table 9). This result indicates that household income could be increased significantly through raising the social capital in the CBFM sites. As discussed earlier, greater contact, linkages and networking between fishers and other organizations provides greater opportunities for the former to generate more income and hence higher welfare. The coefficient for employment (EMP) is positive and is significantly related to household income. These results indicate that fishers could increase their income through diversifying into other employment and income generating activities in the CBFM project areas. The coefficient of natural capital (NC) is negatively (167.8) linked to income but is moderately significant (at 10% level). The organized fishers have imposed fishing restrictions in the project waterbodies. To increase fishing access, fishers have to fish outside the CBFM project, where productivities are low. Moreover, increase fishing areas means fishers have to spend more time fishing and thus allocating time away from higher income generating employment opportunities. In the control areas the coefficient for NC is positive (62.0) but is not a significant determinant of income. Without any conservation measure being undertaken, fisheries stock has not been enhanced and will likely to deteriorate. Poor fishers have limited access to financial capital. The coefficient for FC in both project and control areas are positive (0.576 and 0.693 respectively) but are not significant predictors for household income. A possible reason is that fisher participants used their credit obtained for non-productive activities such as household consumption, health care and festivals. Grootaert and Narayan
Table 9 Regression results for the project and control areas. Variable
Definition
Model 1: Project
Constant
Intercept term
6449.7
0.580
20906.6
SC
Social capital index
2619.4
2.225**
995.2
PC
Physical capital index
0.206
HC
Human capital index
FC
Estimated Coefficient
Model 2: Control t Statistic
Estimated coefficient
t Statistic 1.848* 0.568
0.416
0.517
413.0
0.549
1693.2
Financial capital index
0.576
1.288
0.693
NC
Natural capital index
167.8
1.720*
62.0
CUL
Household cultivable land
19.4
0.793
3.8
AGE
Age of household head
123.9
0.641
HS
Household size
759.9
EMP
Household head employment days
50.6
3.005***
12.9
ATCM
Community meetings attended by household head
1002.4
1.191
385.7
0.980 2.146** 1.273 0.698 0.129 717.9 3.375*** 0.513
5432.9 3.914*** 0.865
N R2 Adj-R2 F-ratio F-probability Note: * Statistically significant at the 10% level. ** Statistically significant at the 5% level. *** Statistically significant at the 1% level.
0.387 120 0.22 0.15 3.07 0.002
120 0.21 0.13 2.78 0.004
G.M.N. Islam et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 173e180
(2004) found that greater access to credit is a spillover effect due to high social capital in Bolivia. The coefficient of household endowment of physical capital (PC) for both project and control areas are negative and are not significant predictors of household income. The implication of this negative relationship is that the fishers can hardly retain their assets during crisis periods. Flooding and other natural disasters occur almost every year, causing people to sell or mortgage their assets to meet their basic needs such as, food, house repair and health care. Bird and Shepherd (2003) reported a similar scenario in Zimbabwe. A severe natural shock could wipe out productive assets which results in increased livelihood vulnerability and reduced productivity.
4. Conclusions and policy implications In this paper the impact of CBFM on household’s welfare is examined. It analyses how the various types of livelihood assets contribute to fishers’ household incomes. Comparisons were made between the sample households from CBFM project and non-CBFM control areas. Principal Component analysis was used to examine the important factors contributed to household well being due to CBFM project intervention. Social capital and financial capital has contributed significantly to household livelihood assets in the CBFM project area compare to non-CBFM/control area. Natural capital has contributed moderately to households in CBFM project area. However, there was only a slight improvement observed in physical and human capital due to the CBFM project implementation. Four factors were found important in constructing social capital: membership with NGOs and other local associations, ability to participate in making decisions, level of knowledge, and influence on securing access to fisheries. The findings support a policy by government, NGOs and donors to invest in pro poor social capital through targeted awareness programmes. The regression results indicate that the social capital, employment and area of fishing are important predictors of household income in the project area. In the control areas, education, household size and age variables are significant. The contribution of social capital is important to household income which indicates that this variable plays a very important role in poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. The study shows that poor people are dependent on fishing for income and subsistence. They have multiple sources of income, although fishing is the important principal earning activity for CBFM participants. CBFM participants have obtained exclusive use rights to the fisheries due to strong facilitation by local community based organizations. Employment in alternative activities has increased to a greater extent particularly in low paid labouring sectors. The low educational attainment of household heads in both project and control sites is the reason why they are not employed in highly paid or non-farm employment. Ownership of capital assets is low to support their livelihood. Fisher households require assets for their security during crisis periods. There would be a strong need for establishing a social safety net so that poor fishers feel secure to use their physical assets as investments. Provision of public works at critical times may be a good option for creating employment opportunities. The CBFM project households received higher amount of credit from multiple sources compare to the non-project/control households, and they could utilize the credit for productive activities. The CBFM partner NGOs provided training to the participants on awareness building and leadership development which are important for empowering the fishers. Participation in decision making on fisheries management has increased in the CBFM project areas and
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this has provided incentive for them to work in community based fisheries activities. The important policy implications of this study is that the user groups of community based organizations who are primarily dependent on fisheries for their livelihood need strong facilitation by NGOs and government to establish access to the fisheries. Posting of experienced staff of DOF and NGOs is vital for the success of CBFM. Health services are extremely poor in rural Bangladesh and the poor people spend a good portion of their income on health care. The provision of free and effective primary health care facilities at the village level should be given priority. Since the poorest fishers rely on fishing for income and their nutritional needs, the security of access to the fisheries resources need to be taken as a priority in future policy formulation in fisheries resources management in Bangladesh. Ethical statement The authors and coauthors of this article are hereby confirms that the manuscript which is submitting to the journal meets the highest ethical standards. The research results are presented is the author’s original work and the reviewer should treat this manuscript as a confidential document. The editor of this journal will have complete responsibility and authority either to accept publication or to reject of submitted paper. It is unethical to send the manuscript to multiple journals concurrently. The authors confirm that this research has not been submitted or published by any journal. The authors will be responsible for correcting the results, if there are mistakes or error in the paper. Acknowledgements The financial assistance provided by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom in carrying out this study is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed in the paper and any errors and omissions are solely the responsibilities of the authors. References Ahmed, M., Capistrano, D., Hossain, M., 1992. Redirecting benefits to genuine fishers: Bangladesh’s new fisheries management policy. Naga, The ICLARM Quarterly 15 (4), 31e34. Bird, K., Shepherd, A., 2003. Livelihoods and chronic poverty in semi-arid Zimbabwe. World Development 31 (3), 591e610. Bird, K., Hulme, D., Moore, K., Shepherd, A., 2000. Chronic Poverty and Remote Rural Areas. CPRC working paper 13. Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. Coleman, J., 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Ellis, F., 2000. Rural Livelihood Diversity in Developing Countries. Oxford University Press, New York. Grafton, R.Q., 2005. Social capital and fisheries governance. Ocean and Coastal Management 48, 753e766. Grootaert, C., Narayan, D., 2004. Local institutions, poverty and household welfare in Bolivia. World Development 32 (7), 1179e1198. Haan, A., Lipton, M., 1999. Poverty in emerging Asia: progress, setbacks, and logjams. Asian Development Review 16 (2), 135e176. Islam, M.N., Dickson, M., 2006. Livelihood Impacts of Community Based Fisheries Management Project, Phase 2 (CBFM-2). Working Paper. WorldFish Center, Bangladesh and South Asia Office, Dhaka. Krishna, A., Uphoff, N., 1999. Mapping and Measuring Social Capital: a Conceptual and Empirical Study of Collective Action for Conserving and Developing Watershed in Rajasthan, India. Social Capital Initiative Series Working Paper No. 13. World Bank, Washington, DC. Krishna, A., 2002. Active Social Capital: Tracing the Roots of Development and Democracy. Columbia University Press, New York. Lam, W., 1996. Institutional design of public agencies and co-production: a study of irrigation associations in Taiwan. In: Evans, Peter (Ed.), State-Society Synergy: Government and Social Capital. Institute of International Studies, Berkeley, CA, pp. 11e47.
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Minkin, S.F., Rahman, M.M., Halder, S., 1997. Fish biodiversity, human nutrition and environmental restoration in Bangladesh. In: Tsai, C., Ali, M.Y. (Eds.), Openwater Fisheries of Bangladesh. The University Press Limited, Dhaka, pp. 183e198. Narayan, D., 2000. Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us? Oxford University Press, New York. Putnam, R., 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. Siddiqui, K., 1989. Licensing vs. leasing system for government owned fisheries (jalmahals) in Bangladesh. In: Aguero, M., Huq, S., Rahman, A., Ahmed, M. (Eds.), Inland Fisheries Management in Bangladesh. Department of Fisheries, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies; and ICLARM, Manila, Philippines, pp. 73e82. Thompson, P.M., Sultana, P., Islam, M.N., Kabir, M.M., Hossain, M.M., Kabir, M.S., 1999. An Assessment of Co-management Arrangements Developed by the Community Based Fisheries Management Project in Bangladesh. Paper
Presented at the International Workshop on Fisheries Co-management, 23e28 August 1999, Penang, Malaysia. Thompson, P.M., Sultana, P., Islam, N., 2003. Lessons from community based management of floodplain fisheries in Bangladesh. Journal of Environmental Management 69, 307e321. Uphoff, N., Wijayarantna, C.M., 2000. Demonstrated benefits from social capital: the productivity of farmer organizations in Gol Oya, Sri Lanka. World Development 28 (11), 1890e1975. Walmsley, S., Purvis, J., Ninnes, C., 2006. The role of small-scale fisheries management in the poverty reduction strategies in the Western Indian Ocean region. Ocean and Coastal Management 49, 812e833. Woolcock, M., Narayan, D., 2000. Social capital: implications for development theory, research and policy. The World Bank Research Observer 15, 225e249. World Bank, 2002. Bangladesh: Progress in Poverty Reduction. Background Paper. Bangladesh Development Forum, Paris.
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Ocean & Coastal Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman
Social capital, community based management, and fishers’ livelihood in Bangladesh Gazi Md. Nurul Islam a, *, Tai Shzee Yew b, Nik Mustapha R. Abdullah b, K. Kuperan Viswanathan c a
Institute of Agricultural and Food Policy Studies (IKDPM), Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia c College of Arts and Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 UUM Sintok, Kedah Darul Aman, Malaysia b
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Available online 5 November 2010
This paper examines the impact of Community Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) on fishing households’ welfare in Bangladesh. It analyses how the various types of livelihood assets contribute to fishers’ household incomes. The study found that fishers in CBFM project areas have improved their access to different assets including social, human, physical, financial and natural capitals. The regression results show that social capital contributed significantly to household income, indicating that social factors play very important roles in poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. Future poverty alleviation policy options need to give priority to investments in human, physical and natural capital assets. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Social capital and social networks are increasingly viewed as key components in ensuring desirable social and economic outcomes. Community based approach is gaining importance in improving social relations among the users of natural resources. In Bangladesh, Community Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) projects have been implemented since 1996 in 116 waterbodies to develop alternative fisheries management where the responsibilities of managing the fisheries resources are shared by the government, non-government organizations (NGOs) and the fishers.1 A total of 130 Community Based Organizations (CBOs) have been formed in these waterbodies as there are more than one CBOs in some large waterbodies. 1.1. Livelihoods, social capital and CBFM in Bangladesh In Bangladesh, inland fisheries plays an important role in providing employment for millions of people, supplying fish for consumption and generating cash revenues from sales of fish. The generated incomes are important in order for fisher households to
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ60 3 8947 1093; fax: þ60 3 8947 1077. E-mail address: [email protected] (G.M.N. Islam). 1 The partner NGOs are mixed in sizes and characteristics. They include large national NGOs such as BRAC, PROSHIKA and international NGO such as Caritas. The NGO effort has largely focused on institution-building: organizing fishers into groups, getting access to resources, providing credit, enabling them to design and carry out their own management measures for resource management. 0964-5691/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2010.10.026
have access to other goods and services such as health care and education. Majority of fishers in Bangladesh generally posses limited capital assets, they are landless, they lack fishing assets and other productive capitals and their livelihoods are crucially dependent on access to the resource systems (World Bank, 2002).2 Under the traditional leasing system for public waterbodies, the management control very often falls into the hands of the rich and influential leaseholders. They exploit the fishers by appropriating maximum share of benefits from fisheries (Siddiqui, 1989; Ahmed et al., 1992). Moreover, increasing demographic pressure on resource systems has resulted in an increase in capture attempts, leading to declining production and income from fishing. Poverty can be expressed in ‘income’ and ‘non-income’ components. The non-income component of poverty is made up of people’s capabilities, vulnerabilities and participation in making livelihood decisions (Walmsley et al., 2006). Access to various capital assets is important in determining the livelihoods of fishers. Assets, as defined in terms of the rural livelihood framework include natural, human, physical, financial and social/political assets (Ellis, 2000). The majority of poor fishers are in a disadvantaged position with respect to access and control of these assets. A single category of assets on its own is not sufficient to yield the varied livelihood outcomes that people seek (Haan and
2 Approximately 45 percent of the country’s population is living in extreme poverty and a large proportion of them are fishers. More than 70% of households’ fish in the floodplains either for income or food (Minkin et al., 1997; Thompson et al., 1999).
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Lipton, 1999; Bird et al., 2000). Access to various capital assets is important in determining the livelihoods of fishers in Bangladesh. The capital assets provide benefits to those who utilize them. Social assets, in contrast, though benefit individuals, is expected to produce benefits collectively (Uphoff and Wijayarantna, 2000). Social assets can be categorized into three types: bonding, bridging and linking but the boundaries between these vary across contexts (Krishna, 2002; Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). Bridging and bonding social assets are both essentially horizontal relationships involving people of more or less equal social standing. In a society where a social group is isolated from another group with different characteristics, the resources of the stronger group will not be accessible to the weaker group. In such a situation the weaker group will lack sufficient social assets for bridging but will be able to bond. Linking social asset is concerned more with vertical relationship connecting people to key political agents, institutions and power bases. Access to linking social asset is clearly vital to the well being of vulnerable households, especially in poor countries and communities (Narayan, 2000). In the existing socio-cultural setting in Bangladesh, the role of the elites for the implementation of fisheries management cannot be ignored. The elites and the politicians have established a strong position in the local administration in which they can exercise power in controlling local resources including fisheries. Domination of elites can be reduced through empowering poor people and building social capital. Fisheries management approaches based on centralized government intervention (leasing of public waterbodies) have proven inadequate to address the poverty problems present in the fishing communities in Bangladesh. The main thrust of the CBFM was to empower the poor fishers through organizing fishing communities and providing them with administrative, training and financial supports. The organized CBFM fishers become crucial in determining their access rights to fisheries resources and improve their livelihoods. The CBFM partner NGOs play an important role in organizing poor fishers. They have organized training courses for fishers to improve their awareness on better use of fisheries resources (waterbodies), group activities, build leadership, and interact with other stakeholders. These training programmes were found very useful for the poor and illiterate fishers in building capacity to manage their resources with support from the NGOs and the government. These NGOs follow different approaches and strategies in line with their organizations’ visions and missions as well as to fit in with local circumstances in the CBFM sites. For examples, Banchte Sheka focuses on women issues in fisheries, Centre for Natural Resource Studies (CNRS) focuses mainly on the development of community based fish habitats restoration, FemCom focuses on media activities; and Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) provides legal support to the CBFM fishers. CBFM organized groups obtained access to the waterbodies through 10 year leases from the Ministry of Land. They introduced local rules in their own fisheries management. The main actions emphasize by the CBFM organizations in all types of waterbodies are conservation of brood fishes, reduction of fishing pressure and raising of economic benefits for sustainable fishers’ livelihoods. It is not clearly understood whether the institutional arrangement under CBFM is a viable alternative for fisheries resource management in Bangladesh. This paper presents the impact of CBFM on fishing households’ welfare by investigating how the various types of livelihood assets contribute to household incomes. Specifically in this paper, a livelihood asset framework and a regression model are used to compare the livelihood assets between fishing communities with and without CBFM; and to examine the factors, in particular the social assets in affecting the welfare of CBFM and non-CBFM fishers’ households.
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the methodology and data sources while the household’s profiles and the impact of CBFM are described in Section 3. A regression analysis is also presented in this section to examine the relationships between households’ income and other livelihood assets. The paper concludes with some policy recommendations for future inland fisheries management. 2. Methodology 2.1. Measurement of social capital and other variables Most of the work on social capital emphasizes the different ways of mobilizing social relationship from within civil society to manage various types of resources and to engage with other actors. Such relationship can play important roles in securing access and defend private as well as group natural resource property rights, and thus seclude those resources from other users. They can also lead to more efficient use of resources through fostering coordinated action (Lam, 1996). A number of literatures indicate that fishing communities that have developed effective social norms and collective control over harvesting have increased returns from fishing while helping to ensure resource sustainability (Grafton, 2005). Social capital can be measured through the involvement of resource users in community based management schemes. Improving fisheries management is responsive to the local situation, resource users, empowerment of fishers, capacity building and access to information. This can be measured by constructing a social capital index using several variables as in (Krishna and Uphoff, 1999; Grootaert and Narayan, 2004). A common method for measuring social capital is the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) which allows the reduction of a number of variables into one or fewer variables. PCA is based on the multiple correlation principle and can explain the variance of the dependent variables. The principal component selects factors with eigenvalues greater than one and they are considered significant. Pn Indices can be constructed using the formula I ¼ i ¼ 1 Wi Xi where, I ¼ the weighted index; W ¼ percentage contribution of each selected variable as the weight; X ¼ the value of each variable; P and ¼ the summation sign. Household livelihood assets in this study include the social, physical, human, financial and natural assets which are measured by a set of variables as defined in Table 1. A set of five variables were used to construct social capital index. Similarly, a set of five variables were used to construct the physical capital index. For the human capital index, financial capital index and the natural capital index, the set of variables used in their construction are seven, two and two respectively. 2.2. Regression model Multiple regression analysis is used to examine the relationships between household income and various livelihood asset variables. The equation is specified and estimated separately for the CBFM project and non-CBFM control sites by using the Ordinary Least squares technique. As shown in equation (1) the explanatory variables included in the model consists of those measuring various asset endowments and demographic characteristics of the households. The dependent variable is the annual household gross income from different sources.
Y ¼ a þ b1 SCþ b2 PCþ b3 HCþ b4 FCþ b5 NCþ b6 CUL þ b7 AGE þ b8 HSþ b9 EMPþ b10 ATCMþError;
(1)
Where, Y ¼ household annual income (taka), SC ¼ household
G.M.N. Islam et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 173e180 Table 1 Definition of variables for various capital index construction. Social capital index Membership ¼ membership in organizations (5 ¼ most important; 1 ¼ less important) Influence ¼ influence over access to resource (5 ¼ strong influence; 1 ¼ no influence) Participation ¼ participation in decision making (number) Knowledge ¼ fisheries management knowledge (5 ¼ full knowledge; 1 ¼ no knowledge) Trust ¼ level of trust (5 ¼ strongly agree; 1 ¼ disagree) Physical capital index Housing ¼ value of house structure (Taka) Latrine ¼ value of water sealed latrine (Taka) Capital assets ¼ value of a set of household assets (Taka) Homestead land ¼ area of homestead land (ha) Fishing equipment ¼ value of equipment (Taka) Human capital index Education ¼ education of household head (years) Age ¼ age of household head (years) Household size ¼ number of household members Employment ¼ total employment days of household members Attendance ¼ participation in community meeting (number) Training ¼ participation in training (number) Information ¼ access to fisheries information (number of sources) Financial capital index Credit ¼ amount of credit received by household (Taka) Sale of assets ¼ value of asset sold by household (Taka) Natural capital index Cultivable land ¼ cultivable land owned by household (ha) Fishing area ¼ area of fishing by households (ha)
endowment of social capital (index) PC ¼ household endowment of physical capital (index) HC ¼ household endowment of human capital (index) FC ¼ household endowment of financial capital (index) NC ¼ household endowment of natural capital (index) CUL ¼ size of household cultivable land (ha) AGE ¼ age of household head (years), HS ¼ household size (number), EMP ¼ employment days of household head (days), ATCM ¼ community meetings attended by household head (number), a, b1 to b10 are parameters to be estimated. 2.3. Data and sources Data were obtained from surveys carried out in four CBFM project waterbodies and four non-project/control waterbodies in two selected regions in Bangladesh from February through May 2005. Wherever applicable, information from secondary sources has also been used. Two types of waterbodies have been selected for this study: semi-closed beel and open beel.3 Random samples of 30 households were chosen from each of the 8 selected waterbodies, giving a total sampled household of 240 (Table 2). Waterbodies were selected randomly from the regions where both CBFM project and non-project waterbodies are located. A census of households was conducted by the WorldFish Center in each of the project and control waterbody areas to gather information on demographic, land holding size, fishing assets, occupational distribution and extent of fishing for livelihoods. The survey in this study covered various aspects of the household economy, including demographic information, household income, sources of income, involvement with income generating activities, lending and borrowing practices, access to different
3 Beels are the deepest part of the floodplains, often with a permanent area of water. Closed beels are relatively “smaller” and well defined waterbodies (may be above or below 8 ha, but are generally not more than 50 ha during the monsoon) with few outlets. Open beels are relatively “larger” and are extensively used for capture fisheries or for the purpose of subsistence fishing by a wide range of stakeholders.
175
Table 2 Sampled waterbodies and households. Waterbody
Project/ Area (ha.) Total Beneficiary Sample control min-max household households (no) households
Ashurar OB Project Chapandaha CB Project Hamil CB Project Dubail OB Project Shal nodi OB Control Doriar CB Control Shampur CB Control Nabagia OB Control Total sample households
100e350 26e100 16e20 21e45 35e84 32e80 35e40 16e40
2466 578 956 1211 1320 535 480 1973
527 57 139 176 na na na na
30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 240
capital assets, social linkages, fisheries resource use, fishing involvement, fishing access, and NGO support. 3. Results and discussions 3.1. Household income Households in the CBFM project area have higher income level compared to those in the non-CBFM control sites. The percentage of the lowest income households is smaller (18%) in the project sites compared to those in the control sites (30%). Combining both closed and open beels, it was found that a higher percentage of project households are in the higher categories of incomes (>20,000 Taka) compared to those in the control sites (Table 3). Several recent studies in Bangladesh (Thompson et al., 2003; Islam and Dickson, 2006) also documented improvements in household incomes of the CBFM households. 3.2. Fishing income Increase in fishing income is a result from improved fisheries management. The study found that households in the CBFM project areas have become more dependent on fishing for both subsistent consumption and income compared to those in the control area (Table 4). Household’s income from fishing was higher in the CBFM project areas compared to the non-CBFM control area. Fishers who fish for own consumption and who sell fish for income in the CBFM project areas have increased the amount of catch compared to their counterparts in the non-CBFM control areas. The study found that fishers fished in more than one waterbodies. CBFM project fishers have access to the project waterbodies and other non-project waterbodies. The fishing access of the CBFM fishers was much wider (12 ha) compared to those for the non-CBFM control areas (8 ha), resulted in fishing income increases for the former. CBFM fishers have increased their awareness and had more incentive to efficiently manage their own fisheries. In the closed beels, fishers were engaged in culturing fish. In the open beels, CBFM fishers introduced improved fisheries management practices Table 3 Fisher households by annual income categories, 2005. Income category in Taka
CBFM project
Total (%) Non-CBFM control
Closed Open beel (%) beel (%) <20,000 Taka 20,000e29,999 Taka 30,000e39,999 Taka 40,000 Taka and above All
Total (%)
Closed Open beel (%) beel (%)
20 20 32 28
17 30 17 37
18 25 24 33
30 22 17 32
30 20 22 28
30 21 19 30
100
100
100
100
100
100
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Table 4 Income and other contributions from fishing, 2005. Contributions
For food (% household) Both income and food (% household) Fishing area (hectare) Fishing income (Taka) Fish consumed (Taka)
CBFM Project
Table 6 Significant variables in the construction of physical capital index. Non-CBFM Control
Performance indicator
Closed beel
Open beel
Total
Closed beel
Open beel
Total
55 80
63 68
59 74
45 53
45 83
45 68
14 7219 2552
10 6193 2044
12 6706 2121
5 3404 1257
11 5282 2276
8 4343 1908
such as creating fish sanctuaries, closed season (fishing ban for 3 months) during fish breeding seasons and imposed restriction on destructive gear use. Closed beels are relatively smaller and easier to manage by the fishers. Despite the well organized fishers and the beels being clearly bounded, CBFM was not successful in some closed beels due to local conflicts. However, CBFM was successful in Ashurar beel one of the largest open waterbodies in terms of area (100e350 ha) and community (17 villages). The chairman of union parishad (local government representative) has supported the Ashurar beel Management Committee in implementing local fisheries resource management rules in the beel. The BMC has successfully protected the sanctuary and strictly followed other management rules with the cooperation of the local community. Fishers in Ashurar beel, have increased income from fishing. This indicates that the success of CBFM mainly depends on the local socio-political conditions and institutional arrangements.
3.3. Social capital index Social capital variable is measured as an index using the PCA method. The most important variables constituting the social capital index in order of factor loading values are: membership in organizations, participation in decision making, level of knowledge and influence on access to resources (Table 5). The most dominant variable in the social capital index is households’ membership in organizations (with a loading value of 0.693). The majority of the fisher households have affiliation with production oriented organizations such as NGOs, cooperative societies and local credit management societies. The reason for the fishers not involved actively in social, religious and cultural organizations is mainly due to their poor economic conditions. Their primary concern is to look for work and generating income to fulfill their daily basic necessities. Good leaderships were found among the communities in three out of four project sites. Active participation of fishers in CBFM allows them to elect the leaders and executive members of the Beel Management Committee. Through CBFM, fishers have participated in stocking and other production related activities such as safe guarding and harvesting fish. This has been controlled through surveillance provided by the fishers in the project sites. It has been observed that there is improvement in fishers’ confidence in fish culture technologies. Table 5 Significant variables in the construction of social capital index. Variables Membership in organization Participation in decision making Level of knowledge Influence over access to resources
Factor loading 0.693 0.685 0.622 0.610
Value of house (Taka) Area of homestead land (decimal) Value of sanitary latrine (Taka) Value of durable assets (Taka)
Factor loading 0.748 0.744 0.697 0.684
The next important variable in the social capital index is the active participation of fishers in decision making on fisheries management rules. These fishing restriction rules introduced by the management committee were strictly obeyed by the fishers. The level of knowledge is also important in constructing the social capital index (0.622). Low level of formal education is observed among the fishing communities. Partner NGOs conducted awareness campaigns and training programs on leadership, accounting management, and production activities and fisheries management to improve fishers’ level of knowledge. Fishers’ influence on resource use (0.610) is the last important factor in the construction of the social capital index. The BMCs with better and greater cooperation from stakeholders and local government representatives have successfully prevented outside attempts to encroach into the CBFM open and closed beel sites. The BMCs can decide on who, when and where to fish, and thus are able to control over fishing in the project waterbodies. 3.4. Physical capital index Generally many fishers in Bangladesh are landless or functional landless.4 Physical asset endowment is a good indicator of income, welfare and livelihood. Physical asset includes housing materials, area of homestead land, sanitary latrine, productive assets and fishing equipments. In constructing the Physical Capital Index using the PCA method, variables with significantly high loading scores are housing materials, area of homestead land, sanitary latrine and productive assets (Table 6). The study found that organized fishers have improved their physical assets over the last couple of years such as using better construction materials and have flush sanitary latrines in their houses. The study showed that households’ average area of homestead is 0.05 ha. Most fisher households do not own any cultivable land. However they cultivate land owned by others either through sharecropping or mortgage arrangements. More and more fishers in all survey areas are engaged in high-yielding variety (HYV) boro rice cultivation. This indicates that fishers are able to diversify their livelihood options in the agriculture sectors. The health and sanitation condition is generally poor in rural areas. They have limited access to health services. Very few households have water sealed latrine. As a consequence, they suffer from diseases such as diarrhea, diabetes, and peptic ulcer. The partner NGOs have provided human development training to the organized fishers. The CBFM participants have greater awareness of health and sanitation. NGOs have provided sanitary latrines at low cost to their group members. The CBFM fishers have more water sealed latrines than those in non-CBFM areas. These are successful efforts that contribute to the quality of life improvement among the fishers in the rural villages. The productive household assets (0.684) such as livestocks, rickshaws, vans, shallow tube wells, bicycles, watches, radios and television sets have increased as the level of household income
4
Household own less than 0.2 ha of land.
G.M.N. Islam et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 173e180 Table 7 Significant variables in the construction of human, financial and natural capital Indices. Variables
Social Capital 8
Factor loading
Human capital index: Education level (year) of household head Financial capital index: Amount (Taka) of credit received by household Natural capital index: Area (hectare) of fishing by household
Control
4 Physical Capital
0.615
rises. These assets could be converted into cash income and play important roles as safety nets during unemployment and/or occurrence of natural crises such as floods or cyclones which results in losses of fish and other crops.
Project
6
0.704 0.690
177
2
Human Capital
0
Natural Capital
Financial Capital
Fig. 1. Scores for access to various capital assets by fishers’ households in the project and control sites.
3.5. Human, financial and natural assets Fishers in Bangladesh are generally illiterate with limited access to formal education. Human capital includes age of household head, education of household head, number of household members, total employment days, attendance in community meetings, participation in trainings, and access to information. The level of formal education is the only significant variable in the human capital index (Table 7). The role of financial capital is very important in explaining fishers’ livelihoods. Fishers have limited access to financial capital and are unable to invest in productive sector to generate income. Financial capital includes variables such as amount of credit received and income from asset sales. The only significant variable with high loading value in the construction of financial capital index is the amount of credit received. The land and fishing ground are considered as natural assets to the fishers. Fishers are generally landless, but they have traditional fishing access to public floodplains or waterbodies owned by private landowners. The area of fishing is the only significant variable in the construction of natural capital index. Fishing access to such fishing grounds depends on the extent of social linkages with others in the particular community. 3.6. Impact of CBFM The impact of CBFM project on the welfare of poor fishers is assessed by examining the improvement in their level of livelihood assets. The households in the CBFM project areas have greater access to the livelihood assets compared to those in the non-CBFM areas (Table 8). Among the assets, the magnitude of social capital and financial capital has increased in the CBFM project areas compared to the non-CBFM areas. However, there are no significant differences in the magnitudes of physical capital, human capital and natural capital, even though the mean score for each of these livelihood assets is higher for CBFM project areas as indicated by the positive mean difference score in Table 8. As shown in Fig. 1, the gaps Table 8 Mean values of household assets, project and control areas. Index
Social capital Physical capital Human capital Financial capital Natural capital
CBFM project
Non-CBFM
CBFM eNon-CBFM
Mean score
Std. deviation
Mean score
Std. deviation
Mean difference score
4.024 5.788 2.421 6.038 2.595
2.046 6.403 3.281 5.648 2.589
2.796 5.269 2.153 3.829 1.768
1.313 6.909 3.217 4.121 2.504
þ1.228 þ0.519 þ0.268 þ2.209 þ0.827
between project and control areas in terms of social capital and financial capital are significantly wider. Under the CBFM project the government has transferred the use rights of waterbodies and provides administrative support to the fishers. The NGOs on the other hand have stationed full time staffs at the village level to facilitate coordination between the government and the fishers. Increased participation of the organized fisher’s in decision making has contributed to better management of the fisheries and improved livelihoods. In addition, fisheries management has improved through the setting up of the Beel Management Committee (BMC) where the executive members and leaders are elected through voting by CBFM members. Through CBFM, the fishers have improved social linkages that enhance their ability to gain economic power and livelihood security. Cooperation is easier in communities with a substantial stock of social capital (Coleman, 1990; Putnam, 1993). The households in the project sites have increased their participation in community affairs can influence fisheries management and show greater compliance with local fisheries rules. The fishers in the project sites have been able to resolve social conflicts more quickly than those in control sites. The participants of CBFM project have received higher amount of credit (financial assets) as shown in Fig. 1. The study shows that higher number of households (85%) in the project area received credit compared to the households in the control area (75%). The project households also received higher amount of credit (Tk 7456) than those in the control sites (Tk 5058) in 2005. The credit received was utilized for various productive purposes. However, almost all the households receiving credit used part of it for buying food, medical treatment and repair houses during natural disaster crisis periods such as typhoon and flooding. The participants received interest free loans (from CBFM) to pay lease fees for the waterbodies and to meet other fisheries related costs. Households derived their income from a wide range of sources in project and non-project control areas. Day labouring is still an important livelihood option for the households. Substantial increases in self employment such as rickshaw pulling and petty trading have been reported by households in the project areas. Higher percentage of project households in both the open and close beels are in the high income categories in comparison to those in the control sites. These results indicate that the CBFM project has contributed positive benefits to the participants. The level of physical asset endowments is an important indicator of household income and welfare. Generally poor fishers possess few productive assets. They sell their assets during the period of crisis since they do not have savings to fall back to during this period. The households in the project areas have increased slightly their ownership of productive assets such as livestocks, rickshaws, vans, water pumps, bicycles, watches, radios and television compared to
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those in the control areas. These assets can be used to generate income during the crisis period in the CBFM areas. The CBFM participants are now able to invest greater amount in house repairs, health and sanitation showing that their quality of life has improved compared to those in the control areas. There was no significant difference in formal education attainment of household head between the project and control areas (Fig. 1). The participants in the project areas attended human and skill development training courses. The partner NGOs have organized exchange visits between the CBFM sites. The fishers reported that the visits were very useful for enhancing their practical experience. The government has undertaken various programmes recently such as “Education for All” and “Food for Education” to enhance education but the impact of these programmes has not been fully reflected yet in this study. Land is the important but scarce natural capital for the fishers. Fishers primarily rely on the vast floodplains for their livelihood. Access to the fishing areas is also determined by the extent of social interactions and relationships with local elites. During the monsoon seasons, all inundated lands (government and private) are treated as fisheries grounds. Although various property rights exist in Bangladesh’s wetlands, fishers are allowed to fish in the private lands during the monsoon seasons. The fishers in the project areas have established trust in the rural community and they are able to negotiate with the landowners to fish. The CBFM fishers have increased their access to the fisheries compared to those in the control areas (Fig. 1). 3.7. Regression analysis results The results of the regression analysis for the project and control sites are presented in Table 9. In the regression analysis, the household annual income was hypothesised to be a function of household asset endowments and household characteristics. The
results indicated that social capital (SC), employment (EMP) and natural capital (NC) are important predictors of household income in the project areas while human capital (HC), household size (HS) and age of household head (AGE) are significant in the control areas. The coefficient for the social capital is positive and is significant for the project area (Table 9). This result indicates that household income could be increased significantly through raising the social capital in the CBFM sites. As discussed earlier, greater contact, linkages and networking between fishers and other organizations provides greater opportunities for the former to generate more income and hence higher welfare. The coefficient for employment (EMP) is positive and is significantly related to household income. These results indicate that fishers could increase their income through diversifying into other employment and income generating activities in the CBFM project areas. The coefficient of natural capital (NC) is negatively (167.8) linked to income but is moderately significant (at 10% level). The organized fishers have imposed fishing restrictions in the project waterbodies. To increase fishing access, fishers have to fish outside the CBFM project, where productivities are low. Moreover, increase fishing areas means fishers have to spend more time fishing and thus allocating time away from higher income generating employment opportunities. In the control areas the coefficient for NC is positive (62.0) but is not a significant determinant of income. Without any conservation measure being undertaken, fisheries stock has not been enhanced and will likely to deteriorate. Poor fishers have limited access to financial capital. The coefficient for FC in both project and control areas are positive (0.576 and 0.693 respectively) but are not significant predictors for household income. A possible reason is that fisher participants used their credit obtained for non-productive activities such as household consumption, health care and festivals. Grootaert and Narayan
Table 9 Regression results for the project and control areas. Variable
Definition
Model 1: Project
Constant
Intercept term
6449.7
0.580
20906.6
SC
Social capital index
2619.4
2.225**
995.2
PC
Physical capital index
0.206
HC
Human capital index
FC
Estimated Coefficient
Model 2: Control t Statistic
Estimated coefficient
t Statistic 1.848* 0.568
0.416
0.517
413.0
0.549
1693.2
Financial capital index
0.576
1.288
0.693
NC
Natural capital index
167.8
1.720*
62.0
CUL
Household cultivable land
19.4
0.793
3.8
AGE
Age of household head
123.9
0.641
HS
Household size
759.9
EMP
Household head employment days
50.6
3.005***
12.9
ATCM
Community meetings attended by household head
1002.4
1.191
385.7
0.980 2.146** 1.273 0.698 0.129 717.9 3.375*** 0.513
5432.9 3.914*** 0.865
N R2 Adj-R2 F-ratio F-probability Note: * Statistically significant at the 10% level. ** Statistically significant at the 5% level. *** Statistically significant at the 1% level.
0.387 120 0.22 0.15 3.07 0.002
120 0.21 0.13 2.78 0.004
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(2004) found that greater access to credit is a spillover effect due to high social capital in Bolivia. The coefficient of household endowment of physical capital (PC) for both project and control areas are negative and are not significant predictors of household income. The implication of this negative relationship is that the fishers can hardly retain their assets during crisis periods. Flooding and other natural disasters occur almost every year, causing people to sell or mortgage their assets to meet their basic needs such as, food, house repair and health care. Bird and Shepherd (2003) reported a similar scenario in Zimbabwe. A severe natural shock could wipe out productive assets which results in increased livelihood vulnerability and reduced productivity.
4. Conclusions and policy implications In this paper the impact of CBFM on household’s welfare is examined. It analyses how the various types of livelihood assets contribute to fishers’ household incomes. Comparisons were made between the sample households from CBFM project and non-CBFM control areas. Principal Component analysis was used to examine the important factors contributed to household well being due to CBFM project intervention. Social capital and financial capital has contributed significantly to household livelihood assets in the CBFM project area compare to non-CBFM/control area. Natural capital has contributed moderately to households in CBFM project area. However, there was only a slight improvement observed in physical and human capital due to the CBFM project implementation. Four factors were found important in constructing social capital: membership with NGOs and other local associations, ability to participate in making decisions, level of knowledge, and influence on securing access to fisheries. The findings support a policy by government, NGOs and donors to invest in pro poor social capital through targeted awareness programmes. The regression results indicate that the social capital, employment and area of fishing are important predictors of household income in the project area. In the control areas, education, household size and age variables are significant. The contribution of social capital is important to household income which indicates that this variable plays a very important role in poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. The study shows that poor people are dependent on fishing for income and subsistence. They have multiple sources of income, although fishing is the important principal earning activity for CBFM participants. CBFM participants have obtained exclusive use rights to the fisheries due to strong facilitation by local community based organizations. Employment in alternative activities has increased to a greater extent particularly in low paid labouring sectors. The low educational attainment of household heads in both project and control sites is the reason why they are not employed in highly paid or non-farm employment. Ownership of capital assets is low to support their livelihood. Fisher households require assets for their security during crisis periods. There would be a strong need for establishing a social safety net so that poor fishers feel secure to use their physical assets as investments. Provision of public works at critical times may be a good option for creating employment opportunities. The CBFM project households received higher amount of credit from multiple sources compare to the non-project/control households, and they could utilize the credit for productive activities. The CBFM partner NGOs provided training to the participants on awareness building and leadership development which are important for empowering the fishers. Participation in decision making on fisheries management has increased in the CBFM project areas and
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this has provided incentive for them to work in community based fisheries activities. The important policy implications of this study is that the user groups of community based organizations who are primarily dependent on fisheries for their livelihood need strong facilitation by NGOs and government to establish access to the fisheries. Posting of experienced staff of DOF and NGOs is vital for the success of CBFM. Health services are extremely poor in rural Bangladesh and the poor people spend a good portion of their income on health care. The provision of free and effective primary health care facilities at the village level should be given priority. Since the poorest fishers rely on fishing for income and their nutritional needs, the security of access to the fisheries resources need to be taken as a priority in future policy formulation in fisheries resources management in Bangladesh. Ethical statement The authors and coauthors of this article are hereby confirms that the manuscript which is submitting to the journal meets the highest ethical standards. The research results are presented is the author’s original work and the reviewer should treat this manuscript as a confidential document. The editor of this journal will have complete responsibility and authority either to accept publication or to reject of submitted paper. It is unethical to send the manuscript to multiple journals concurrently. The authors confirm that this research has not been submitted or published by any journal. The authors will be responsible for correcting the results, if there are mistakes or error in the paper. Acknowledgements The financial assistance provided by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom in carrying out this study is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed in the paper and any errors and omissions are solely the responsibilities of the authors. References Ahmed, M., Capistrano, D., Hossain, M., 1992. Redirecting benefits to genuine fishers: Bangladesh’s new fisheries management policy. Naga, The ICLARM Quarterly 15 (4), 31e34. Bird, K., Shepherd, A., 2003. Livelihoods and chronic poverty in semi-arid Zimbabwe. World Development 31 (3), 591e610. Bird, K., Hulme, D., Moore, K., Shepherd, A., 2000. Chronic Poverty and Remote Rural Areas. CPRC working paper 13. Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. Coleman, J., 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Ellis, F., 2000. Rural Livelihood Diversity in Developing Countries. Oxford University Press, New York. Grafton, R.Q., 2005. Social capital and fisheries governance. Ocean and Coastal Management 48, 753e766. Grootaert, C., Narayan, D., 2004. Local institutions, poverty and household welfare in Bolivia. World Development 32 (7), 1179e1198. Haan, A., Lipton, M., 1999. Poverty in emerging Asia: progress, setbacks, and logjams. Asian Development Review 16 (2), 135e176. Islam, M.N., Dickson, M., 2006. Livelihood Impacts of Community Based Fisheries Management Project, Phase 2 (CBFM-2). Working Paper. WorldFish Center, Bangladesh and South Asia Office, Dhaka. Krishna, A., Uphoff, N., 1999. Mapping and Measuring Social Capital: a Conceptual and Empirical Study of Collective Action for Conserving and Developing Watershed in Rajasthan, India. Social Capital Initiative Series Working Paper No. 13. World Bank, Washington, DC. Krishna, A., 2002. Active Social Capital: Tracing the Roots of Development and Democracy. Columbia University Press, New York. Lam, W., 1996. Institutional design of public agencies and co-production: a study of irrigation associations in Taiwan. In: Evans, Peter (Ed.), State-Society Synergy: Government and Social Capital. Institute of International Studies, Berkeley, CA, pp. 11e47.
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