Lack of skilled manpower, technology and equipment are the main barriers in utilising the marine resources in Bangladesh.
“We need data about our marine resources. But how can we get it if we do not have [necessary] human resources and technology,” Maritime Affairs Unit Secretary M Khurshed Alam told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
Citing an example, he said Bangladesh would procure survey vessel, but it is a big challenge to utilise it properly.
“Do we have people to operate it and utilise it in the proper way? It is a big problem,” he pointed out.
Khurshed is of the view that Bangladesh should conduct its own survey and research to assess the gas and oil reserves in the Bay of Bengal.
“We need to do our own survey. We should not depend on other’s survey to determine if we have gas resources or not,” he said in response to a comment by German scientist Herman Kudrass who claimed that he had conducted seismic survey in the Bay and found no gas reserves.
Kudrass claimed that he had conducted three seismic surveys on behalf of German Research Agency in the first half of ‘90s and covered all the areas of former economic zone.
Kudrass came to Dhaka to attend the two-day international workshop on blue economy inaugurated yesterday.
A total of 32 experts from 19 countries are taking part in the workshop.
Six presentations were made in two sessions yesterday while three more presentations scheduled for today’s lone session.
Additional Director General of Food and Agriculture Organisation Arni M Mathiesen in his presentation focused on fisheries in the Bay.
Mathiesen said there was ample scope for fisheries exploitation in the Bay since it was not over exploited.
He, however, cautioned that ecosystem should be protected, and unregulated and unreported fishing should be stopped.
The FAO is willing to help develop the fishing sector in Bangladesh as the country acquires only 70,000 tonnes of fishes from the Bay. Sri Lanka, Thailand and India catch about 80 hundred thousand tonnes of fish every year from the Bay.
Johannes Gille of the Netherlands said the total output of blue economy in the European Union was 500bn euros a year.
Gille said developing countries like Bangladesh should focus on the marine sectors where research work is available.
There are ample studies on shipping or gas and oil sectors, and Bangladesh should focus on those instead of going for minerals like cobalt, copper or manganese on the seabed, he suggested.
He also stressed that the marine resources should be protected and preserved for keeping the environment sustainable.
Lei Bo of China said Beijing was willing to help Bangladesh in developing the marine sector.
China has undertaken 908 projects on different sectors in the marine economy and allocated 2.5bn Chinese renminbi, 500 vessels, 30000 people and 100 research institutes.
Wenxi Zhu of the Unesco said the knowledge about the sea was very low level.
He said science, technology and innovation capacity need to be increased for having a sustainable blue economy.
Joacim Johannesson of Sweden said marine spatial planning (MSP) was needed for tapping ocean resources.
The MSP should be integrated and multi-objective, strategic and future oriented, and continuous and adaptive, he said.
In the inaugural session, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh needed to utilise the potential of ocean resources for sustainable development.
She admitted that there was a deficit in planning, proper knowledge and technology about the blue economy in Bangladesh.
The premier hoped that the workshop would provide a set of recommendations which would help the socio-economic development of Bangladesh.
Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said it was evident that blue economy demands a balance of conservation-utilisation-exploitation.
He said Bangladesh was engaged in a global debate on Post-2015 Development Agenda in UN to reach consensus on a stand-alone sustainable development goals on “conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.”
There is a broad agreement on several targets under the goal such as preventing and reducing all kinds of marine pollution and sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems, the minister said.
In the concluding session today, an outcome document, Way Forward, will be presented for adoption in the workshop.
