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2. Introduction:
Tanguar Haor is a variety of ecological and natural beauty which is consist of 88 villages in Sylhet
and Mymensing districts.
The various types of living and non-living organisms are found there.
Tanguar haor located in the Dharmapasha and Tahirpur Upazilas of Sunamganj District in
Bangladesh, is a unique wetland ecosystem of national importance and has come into
international focus. The area of Tanguar Haor including 46 villages within the haor is
about 100km2 of which 2,802.36 hector is wetland. It is the source of livelihood for
more than 40,000 people. The Government of Bangladesh declared Tanguar Haor as an
Ecologically Critical Area in 1999 considering its critical condition as a result of
overexploitation of its natural resources.
Management of Tanguar Haor has been always difficult. Large number of bipolar
components, sensitive ecosystem, extreme poverty of the people living in the area and
remoteness are some of the difficulty faced by the managers. Nature of Tanguar Haor
makes it impossible to make a perfect management plan. Managers need to consider all
the trade-offs and review management plan time to time for a better result.
Government of Bangladesh (GoB) with the help of international organizations like IUCN
and SDC made a much better Tanguar Haor management plan. This management plan
focuses on community based sustainable management system.
Although, current implemented Tanguar Haor management plan is quite successful
project, but not a perfect one. Time to time review and addition of some good
management practice will definitely make it richer.
3. Objectives:
Objectives of this study are to:
Showing some new dainty on the current Tanguar Haor management plan.
Try to overcome some obstacles of the plan.
Make the plan more realistic.
4. Limitations:
This study based on secondary data collection from lecture notes, Books &
through internet on published videos.
Practical field visit & lack of practical data collection are the limitations of the
study.
There are no interviews and no any databases from the statistics or no any
survey work has done.
6.3 Biodiversity:
Ecosystem of Tanguar Haor is rich in biodiversity. It is estimated that a total of
200 wetland plant species, 141 fish species, 11 amphibians, 34 reptiles (6 turtles,
7 lizards and 21 snakes), 206 birds and 34 mammals occur in this ecosystem.
Among mammal species Jackal, different kinds of mouse and rats, fishing cat,
mongoose and Flying Fox lives in this area.
Among bird species 50.08% are aquatic and 49.10% are terrestrial. It is found
that 50.29% of birds are migratory and 49.70% resident. Of all the birds 12.57%
are ducks, 6.58% are raptorial and 18.56% are waders. Among these bird species
some globally threatened birds like Bartailed Godwit, Long-toed Stint, Pallas's
Fish Eagle, Greater Spotted Eagle, Peregrine Falcon and Black Bittern can be
found in this haor.
Ecotourism:
Although nature has intrinsic value and should be protected, but unless a natural
resource can generate money, it is very hard to protect it. This is especially true for a
poor country like Bangladesh. Ecotourism can generate huge amount of money without
degrading a natural resource. Tanguar Haor is one of the most beautiful places in
Bangladesh but because of lack of proper communication facilities and proper
infrastructure, it generates very less money. Government should take proper plan to
establish a successful ecotourism spot in Tanguar Haor.
Local people should be involved in ecotourism. Local people can acts as guide; they can
sell food and handicraft to tourist. Already local people are creating community fund.
With this fund they can build ecologically friendly tourist cottage, floating cottage and
house boats for tourist.
Communication:
In wet season Tanguar Haor become flooded and become a freshwater sea. People use
boat for transportation in monsoon season. In dry season water transportation is
difficult because much of the land becomes dry. Building roads are not viable because
they get washed out every flooding season. People use temporary unpaved roads in the
dry season. Instead of building roads to be destroyed by flood, government should invest
on constructing and maintaining permanent waterways throughout the Haor.
Due to maximization of land use and higher yield it should be encouraged where
multiple aspect of farming be combined to make an integrated farming possible.
A small farm should comprised of pond, duck and chicken rearing and rice and
vegetable growing.
Organic compost:
Waste from fisheries and haor should be collected to make natural compost
which can be used as fertilizer, which environmentally friendly and be sold on the
market for cash.
Monitoring Program:
Some sort of monitoring program for management plan will create the
sustainable ecosystem for Tanguar Haor area.
Conclusion:
Tanguar Haor, with its unique ecosystem known for hosting many species of fish and as a
staging area for the migratory birds that fly in to escape the bitter northern hemisphere
winter, is a rich resource for the inhabitants of some 88 villages in and around it.
Yet even as the 10,000 hectare-haor, one of the country's two Ramsar Sites - wetlands
designated of international importance under the The Convention on Wetlands,
commonly known as Ramsar - has gradually grown into an international tourist spot, its
precious biodiversity is now threatened by the spectre of overexploitation. If the
indiscriminate use of haor resource is continued the people who depend on the haor will be left
with no haor to survive on. So the integrated resource management plan will be come in handy
that it will maintain the haor’s ecological function and make it thrive in biodiversity and the
same time make the local people thrive economically as well.
Taanguar haor and its natural and socioeconomic resource and the benefit it bestows us only will
be sustainable after we achieve a cohabitation with the wetland and the people living there.
Resource users should be conscious that they are not the users rather the custodian of the
Tanguar haor. Truly active participation of this integrated resource management plan in all
sphere of the physical and social aspect of Tanguar haor is necessity to make Tanguar haor a
truly sanctuary of ecology and a sustainable home for the haor people.
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