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“Tanguar Haor”

Integrated Resource Management


Plan

Course instructor: Niaz Ahmed Khan, Ph.D

Name: Sarowar Jahan


ID: 1725377676
Subject Code: ENV- 609

North South University


1. Abstract:
One of the ecologically critical areas of Bangladesh, to investigate the causes of natural
resources degradation and management prospects for biodiversity conservation. The
study was carried out during the period from March 2011 to February 2012. Key
informants interview, observation, focus group discussion (FGD) and content analysis
were performed to collect necessary data. The study found almost 50% of the people
were hard poor and basically fishing (30.1%) was the principal occupation and other
major professions were farming (12.9%), rearing of livestock (8.6%) and business (8.6%).
In the study area, more than half of total population used hanging (22.6%) latrine and
drink shallow tube-well water (74.2%), where rest of people (17.2%) drink river or haor
water. However, the use of pesticides, hanging latrine, burned oil and coal washing were
the main causes for environmental degradation in the studied haor area, which badly
affected the socio-economic status, and fostered health problems and environmental
disturbance. Flashflood is a common phenomenon in this area occurring for excessive
rainfall and climate change. Consequently, agricultural loss, damage of home, diseases of
livestock and health problems regularly hurting haor people and thus suffering from
diseases like diarrhea, cholera, typhoid and fever and cold during the flood (54.8%), after
flood (22.6%) and before flood (17.2%). Tanguar haor has great ecological and
socioeconomic importance and this research will help to sustainable management of
wetland-based resources in Bangladesh.

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.

5. Features of Tanguar Haor area:


5.1 Physical Features:

Waters in Tanguar haor consist mainly of water backing up in the Baulai-Surma


river system, although some water is received from streams flowing from the
Meghalaya hills, in India, to the north. Although rich in nutrients, waters are
generally clear, especially in the dry season. The Jadukata River, to the north-
east, brings large amounts of silt to this part of the haor. The entire area is
flooded during the summer monsoon (June-September) and waters may 6-10
metres deep in the beels; in the dry winter months, water depth in the beels
ranges from 2-6 metres.
5.2 Ecological Features:

The haor is characterised by some of the last remnants of swamp forest in


Bangladesh, dominated by Barringtonia acutangula (hijal) and Pongamia pinnata
(koroch). Reedlands dominated by Phragmites karka (nal), but accompanied by
an abundance of other emergent species (Aeschynomene indica, Alternanthera
philoxeroides, Asparagus racemosus, Clerodendron indicum, Clinogyne
dichotoma, Coix aquatica, Cuscuta australis, Echinochloa crus-galli, Ficus
heterophyllus, Fimbristylis dichotoma, Leersia hexandra, Lippia javanica, Ludwigia
species, Mimosa pudica, Monochoria hastata, Oryza rufipogon, Polygonum
barbatum, Pseudoraphis spinescens, Saccharum spontaneum and Typha
angustata) are an important habitat for many waterfowl. The swamp forests and
reedlands also include uncommon plant species such as Clematis cadmia, Rosa
clinophylla and Oxystelma secamone.

6. IRM Plan Components:


There are thousands of components need to address to make integrated
resource management (IRM) plan for a complex ecosystem like Tanguar Haor.
Many of the major components are subdivided into many overlapping
components. Some of the major components and its subdivision are shown
below:

6.1 Wet Land:

Bangladesh's most important freshwater wetland, the site lies in the


northeastern part of the country in the floodplain of the Surma River, one of the
main tributaries of the Brahmaputra at the base of the Meghalaya Hills in
adjacent India.

6.2 People and livelihood:


Tanguar Haor supports one of Bangladesh’s “mother fisheries” (i.e. most
important inland fisheries), and has been leased for commercial exploitation at
least since the 1930s. Restocking, mainly with major carp species, is carried out
on an annual basis by the Department of Fisheries. Fishing is currently carried
out by means of fishermens recruited from well outside the district, and a
temporary fishing camp is annually established for housing 2000+ fishermen and
their families. Areas adjacent the haor are cultivated, mainly with rice, and with
wheat to the north of the haor. Around homesteads, many vegetables (beans,
gourds, yams), fruit (banana, papaya, mango, jujube) and crops such as mustard
are grown. As water levels drop in the drier months, peripheral areas of the haor
are cultivated with rice, and used for grazing of cattle and buffalo. Rice fields are
irrigated with water pumped from the beels. Duck are kept in village ponds and
in the beels. Reed, grass and swamp forest trees are all used as fuel, which is in
short supply in the area. At a few locations, small deposits of young peat are
found, and these are excavated for fuel. Wildfowl are hunted for food and for
sale at local markets. Turtles and tortoises are hunted for food.
As like the other wetland areas, safe drinking water is a common vital issue in the
haor area. Although most of the people (74.2%) use shallow tube well, it is not
easy to access. There is 1-2 shallow tube well in village (for 600-800 people app.)
and it is difficult to collect water in various times like night or rainy season. On
the other hand, some people like economically sound and set up deep tube well
only for their family members. Due to difficulty to access most of the people
(17.2%) drink river or haor water.

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.

7. Tanguar Haor Integrated Resource Management Plan:


Current community based sustainable management is a successful management project
of Tanguar Haor. To keep the success of the project sustainable and long lasting it is
necessary to add some components.

 Continuation of the project:


Tanguar Haor management is implemented with the help of IUCN and SDC. The project
is now on its extended phase. This project should continue further many years unless
the community has the ability to handle the management system. In the meantime,
government should establish a well-structured monitoring body that will monitor and
guide the community management system.

 Alternative income generation:


To reduce dependency on the haor is one of the most important priorities. Government
and agencies involved in managing Tanguar Haor need to find new ways so that people
can generate alternate income.
Some of the alternative income source can be:
 Cage fish culture
 Beef cow and water buffalo farming
 Duck farming
 Snail farming (Heliciculture)
 Duckweed and Azolla cultivation

 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.

 Local indigenous knowledge exploitation:


Various Haor adjacent peoples indigenous knowledge should be formally
researched and facilitate in the local agro-economic activities, such as floating
garden and use of poultry as pest control.

 Agro based food processing industry:


An exercise in scaling can be done, the Uganda’s example where the village grows
their food and process and package it, can be replicate here to make the haor
people more resilient.

 Integrated farming technique:

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.

 Creation of Tanguar haor buffer zone:


Adjacent land surrounding Tanguar haor should be designated as buffer zone and
somewhat restriction should be placed of building infrastructure so not to
disturb the core haor area.
 Strategic displacement of people:
People living in the most ecologically critical part of Tanguar haor should be
relocated to the buffer zone of the haor and be given land and monetary reward
and a source of employment either in the conservation work or agriculture work.

 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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