Fisheries and Livestock Minister Sayedul Hoque yesterday announced that the government is considering to extend the time period for the ban on Ilish netting during its breeding season in future.
The minister made the remark at a review meeting at Matsya Bhaban in the capital on the recent 10-day drive, enforced to protect egg-carrying Ilish fishes to ensure safe spawning during their peak breeding season.
“Incidents of fishing mother Ilish during the peak breeding period indicates the importance of expanding the ban period. Officials from the local administration in 14 coastal districts and members of law enforcing agencies have also suggested imposing a ban on netting Ilish at least for 20 days,” he added.
The minster further said the government was keen to protect Ilish at any cost and a total of 723 fishermen were jailed and around Tk37 lakh collected in fines for illegal netting of Ilish during the ban period this year.
“The government is not interested in penalising poor fishermen who do this because of poverty and pressure from loan providers. The government, in future, will include public representatives in the drive to control loan providers or other influential persons,” he said.
Saying Ilish fish production will be threatened if the mother Ilish and Jatkas (baby Ilish) are not well protected, he also informed: “If we can protect them properly, the production of Ilish alone will be around 5 lakh metric tonnes (MT) per year.”
While presenting the Mother Ilish Conservation Drive-2014 report, Jatka Preservation and Research Project Director ABM Zahid Habib said regular drives to protect Jatkas since 2011 had cut down the number of Ilish being netted illegally during the breeding season.