Effect of predictive factors on sustainable development and management of fresh water wetland fisheries*

Abstract

Wetlands of India are basically low-lying areas and are one of the most important and potential inland natural fish habitats of the country and provide livelihood to millions of poor fishers living around them. In India, they account for a total area of 3.54 lakh ha covering states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Asom and other North-East states. The present annual fish yield from these wetlands is 350 kg/ha on the average against estimated production potential of 1500kg/ha/year. Among the Indian states, Asom is endowed with myriads of wetlands ranging from 35 to 3458.12 ha in water spread area. The average existing fish production from wetlands of Asom 173 kg/ha/year against its production potential of 1,000–1,500 kg/ ha/year and several factors, viz. habitat alteration, over exploitation, lack of scientific management, encroachment, etc., are responsible for poor productivity of the wetlands. Hence, a study was conducted in 4 selected floodplain wetlands of the state namely Talu Malu (22.0 ha), Amuguri Basapathar (50.0 ha), Kutuha Bar (16.0 ha) and Bhitorkuri (20.0 ha) floodplain wetlands to see the critical factors associated with sustainable development and management of wetlands. The study revealed that four predictive variables namely management capabilities of wetland development committee (X15), availability of aquaculture inputs (X17), age (X1), community-based fisheries organization (X14) have significant positive contribution towards sustainable development and management of wetland fisheries (Y) and each of them contributed at 1% (P<0.01) level of significance (‘t’ values as 6.57**, 3.09**, 4.22** and 2.79** with ‘SD’ value of ± 4.550,1.580,12.595 and 0.992 respectively.