Baikka Beel permanent wetland sanctuary – briefing note

Key points

 Since it was declared in 2003, the combination of community based conservation by Baragangina Resource Management Organisation supported by Government of Bangladesh (Ministry of Land, local administration and Department of Fisheries), a series of USAID funded projects and NGO (Center for Natural Resources Studies) has succeeded in restoring wetland biodiversity within the sanctuary.

 Baikka Beel sanctuary ensures native fish can repopulate the entire Hail Haor (about 13,000 ha), helping to double fish catches since 1999.

 Waterbird numbers increased from a few hundred to over 10,000 each year.

 The sanctuary has become a model for wetland conservation and co-management attracting national and international visitors.

Background

Wetlands support the livelihoods of many poor users, provide ecosystem services, and are biodiverse. Hail Haor is a large wetland in Moulvibazar district, northeast Bangladesh extending over 12,000 ha in the monsoon season, holding over 3,000 ha of water in the dry season, and providing livelihoods to around 160,000 people. Community-based co-management has successfully restored these uses and values through a series of projects supported by USAID since 1999 up to the present.

Initially Baragangina Khal (13.55 acres) was leased and protected as a sanctuary, but support from each tier of government was gradually obtained, resulting in the Ministry of Land setting aside "Baikka Beel" as a permanent sanctuary in July 2003 (officially Chapra-Magura and Jadura fisheries covering 122.38 acres), in practice an area of about 170 ha has been protected as the sanctuary including areas of khas land.(settlement to landless people was cancelled on 14 December 2008) In parallel a community organization - Baragangina Resource Management Organization (RMO) - was formed and has been responsible for continued protection of this sanctuary as well as influencing land use in the surrounding area, and promoting wider conservation and sustainable natural resource management.

Baragangina RMO has managed and protected the Baikka Beel sanctuary since 2003. Conservation measures in this sanctuary protect fish stocks for the whole haor. Baikka Beel is the key dry season refuge for fish, although each of the other RMOs also managed smaller sanctuaries (but these were lost since 2012 due to non-renewal of their rights). Baikka Beel sanctuary has restored diverse wildlife and the wetland landscape and ecosystem.

Baikka Beel visitor centre Baragangina RMO sharing experience with visiting fisheries department officials

Baikka Beel 1 Updated February 2019 Conservation measures

From 2004 onwards Baragangina RMO quickly stopped fishing and hunting in the sanctuary, with support from local government, and employed local guards, initially with grants and since 2007 with a regular allocation of funds as a grant from an endowment fund established by USAID and Government of Bangladesh). A management plan for the sanctuary (which ended all extractive use and added visitor arrangements) was developed through March 2007 participatory planning workshops with local resource users and stakeholders, and approved by the co- management body – the Upazila Fisheries Committee - in 2006. This plan has recently been updated for the next ten years.

From 2003 to 2006 major habitat restoration took place. Local contractors innovated small scale dredgers to deepen just over 3 ha of silted up beel. In most years since modest areas have been re-excavated by hand. Here submerged concrete hexapods and pipes were August 2010 placed to shelter fish, as a deterrent to fishing and to provide surfaces for periphyton (natural fish food) growth. Over 11,000 koroch (Millettia pinnata, syn. Pongamia pinnata) and hijal (Barringtonia acutangula) swamp trees were planted by the RMO during the initial period, with further planting using endowment fund resources and support from Chevron and CREL. These have developed into a swamp woodland strip along the east site of the sanctuary. This is flanked by bushy swamp thicket dominated by dhol kolmi Ipomoea fistulosa. This has restored an important habitat for small migratory birds and other fauna. January 2014

Impacts - birds

Waterbird numbers and diversity increased rapidly with protection. The mid-winter waterbird census shows an increase from about 300 waterbirds of 16 species in January 2004 to 12,250 water birds of 40 species in January 2010, 10,479 waterbirds of 41 species in January 2014, and 10,713 waterbirds of 41 species in January 2017, and 11,615 waterbirds of 39 species in January January 2017 2019. During the course of a winter at least 15,000 waterbirds use Baikka Beel – the second graph shows the sum of maximum counts by species, as some are in highest numbers in the early dry season and others later. In total six globally threatened and six near-threatened species occur in the sanctuary. It is particularly important for Pallas’s Fish Eagle, and is the winter home to up to 10% of South Asia’s Fulvous Whistling Duck.

Resident waterbirds are fewer, but the sanctuary is important for Pheasant-tailed Jacana. A nest box system (the first in the wild) for Cotton Pygmy Geese (photo right) has helped these

Baikka Beel 2 Updated February 2019 birds recover and nest successfully in the sanctuary each year since 2007. As the trees mature more herons have started to nest in them.

Baikka Beel mid-winter waterbird census. Counts were conducted each year in January or early February as part of the Asian Waterbird Census (AWC).

Since 2011 bird ringing in the swamp forest and thickets including dhol kolmi has revealed how important this habitat is for several rare and skulking bird species including four new to Bangladesh. In December 2011 the little known Large-billed Reed Warbler Acrocephalus orinus was recorded (the first undoubted record in South Asia for 78 years, right side in photo below).

Bird species diversity in the sanctuary has rapidly increased with protection and habitat restoration: February 2005 - 59 September 2006 - 91 February 2008 - 125 February 2012 - 169 January 2014 – 175 January 2019 - 194

Baikka Beel 3 Updated February 2019

This highlights the importance of a diverse restored wetland ecosystem. The main habitats that wetland dependent birds make use of in Baikka Beel (in order from the ones used by more species) are: swamp thicket, emergent vegetation, open water, mud, short wet grasses, shallow open water and floating vegetation.

Impacts - fisheries

The key actions in Hail Haor since 1999 by Baragangina RMO and seven other Resource Management Organizations (RMOs) formed originally by Management of Aquatic ecosystems through Community Husbandry project (and subsequently supported by an endowment fund and by the Integrated Protected Area Co-management and Climate Resilient Ecosystems and Livelihoods projects) have been establishing fish sanctuaries, observing closed seasons when most fish spawn, ending dewatering, and re-excavation of silted up waterbodies, some releases of locally scarce fish species in the early 2000s, and swamp forest planting. Although some of the smaller sanctuaries were lost after 2010 when RMOs lost the right to manage those waterbodies, conservation particularly through protection of Baikka Beel has continued and this sanctuary benefits the entire haor fishery. Impacts have been monitored in detail for the whole haor by regularly monitoring fishing effort and catches in the same representative areas for over 15 years.

Compared with the baseline condition fish catches have Hail Haor fish catch trend roughly doubled and maintained 450 at a high level since 2004. The 400 catch per unit area from 2010-11 y = 13.816x + 181.42 onwards (about 370-400 kg/ha) is 350 R² = 0.7387 close to the maximum considered 300 sustainable for a healthy 250 floodplain wetland ecosystem. 200 Based on a wet season water area 150 of 12,490 ha and regular intensive 100 Catch Per Unit Area (kg/ha) monitoring, the added production 50 of fish amounts to over 2,600 tons a year in Hail Haor. For example, 0 with an average reported sale value of fish of just over Tk 190 per kg in 2015, this Fish (including shrimp) diversity in Hail Haor amounted to an additional value of fish produced in Hail Year No of Diversity Haor in just 2015, compared with baseline conditions, of species index* about Tk 538 million or US$ 6.9 million in 2015 prices. 1999-00 (baseline) 70 2.80 2000-01 (impact 1) 69 2.97 Fish diversity increased during the period when RMOs 2001-02 (impact 2) 68 3.42 managed a significant number of beels, but has declined 2002-03 (impact 3) 75 3.41 somewhat after 2011-12 when RMOs lost management 2003-04 (impact 4) 67 3.36 2004-05 (impact 5) 79 3.60 rights. Recent negative trends may be the result of more 2005-06 (impact 6) 75 3.43 intensive fishing and dewatering of waterbodies that are 2011 (impact-11) 81 3.60 no longer under management by RMOs, and the effect of 2012 (impact 12) 85 3.40 aquaculture bunds reducing floodplain wetland. A recent 2014 (impact 14) 78 3.00 increase in Grass Carp, which was rarely caught in the 2015 (impact 15) 73 2.30 base and early years, presumably comprise escapes from 2016 (impact 16) 69 2.45 Years defined as: April to March (1999 to 2006), the rapidly expanding areas of aquaculture encroaching and as February to January (2011 onwards). into the haor floodplains. This has reduced the areas of * Shannon-Wiener diversity index (H’) calculated seasonal openwater fishery available to traditional small using the weight of each species recorded in the scale fishers in the rest of the haor.

Baikka Beel 4 Updated February 2019

2000 Aquaculture: 101 Hectare 2014 Aquaculture: 863.7 Hectare

Changes in wetland area lost to aquaculture in Hail Haor wetland 2000 to 2014

Fish diversity in Hail Haor

Baikka Beel 5 Updated February 2019