CONTENT ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF BANGLADESH’S AQUACULTURE & ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES Ivana Rahaman Hofstra University 2021: Department of Geology, Environment, and Sustainability INTRODUCTION
DISCUSSION
Bangladesh’s aquaculture industry has grown rapidly in the past few decades. Being a coastal country with fertile lands and hundreds of rivers, Bangladesh’s landscape has allowed them to become one of the largest producers of farmed shrimp and fish in the world today. The aquaculture industry is extremely important for Bangladesh’s economy. In 2014-2015 alone, they made over $500 million in exports. The industry has also allowed for millions in coastal communities to have a means of living. Despite these benefits, there have been detrimental effects to the environment. Saltwater intrusion, bycatch, and especially mangrove destruction have been major concerns over the years. Mangroves are one of the most carbon rich ecosystems in the world, home to hundreds of different plant and animal species. Along with environmental destruction from the aquaculture industry, Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to effects from climate change, such as sea level rise and cyclones. Bangladesh has passed several legislations regarding these issues; however, it is essential to see if these policies fully address the sustainability concerns of the country.
Bangladesh’s aquaculture and environmental policies have mentioned a variety of terms in all three categories. However, they all seem to have a common theme. Overwhelmingly, there is more of a focus on conservation as opposed to preservation, meaning that the government is focusing on finding ways to continue to use the environment for economic benefit rather than keeping these areas protected from use. There are millions of people who rely on aquaculture and agriculture in their daily lives, therefore these results were expected. Policies like the Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act (1995) and Environment Conservation Rules (1997) did not mention any terms that would fit under the equity or economics categories. They mostly focused on controlling excessive pollution and waste. The National Forest Policy of 1994 focused heavily on promoting afforestation and other methods to ensure the forest sector continues to provide for the economy and the people. In terms of equity, the policy recognizes the importance of allowing the local communities to participate in the economy. The National Fisheries Policy of 1998, the largest policy in this analysis, focused the most on economic aspects, such as promoting fisheries production. At the same time, it also brought up many equity aspects such as extension programs and fisher education programs. Like many of the other policies, its main environmental focus was conservation to ensure the aquaculture industry continues to provide.
METHODOLOGY
Figure 2. This graph displays what policies were used in the analysis. There are 3 colored bars representing the different categories and how many mentions of each category were recorded in each policy.
A major issue that these policies did not seem to address properly was the mangrove forests. It was mentioned a total of three times throughout the policies. The National Fisheries Policy made it clear that aquaculture is not to be expanded into the mangrove forests. However, due the drastic damage that the mangroves have suffered since the rapid expansion of the industry, it was assumed that these policies would have placed more emphasis on them. Overall, while these policies have mentioned numerous environmental aspects, a lot of these policies contained contradictory statements that implied they wanted to increase fisheries production while protecting biodiversity. Phrases like these were repeated many times, showing that while upholding the environment is important, it cannot be at the expense of the industry. These polices did mention several environmental and equity issues, but they did not lay out clear guidelines as to how they were to achieve any goals. There was also a lack of mention of climate change, which is affecting numerous coastal communities.
Policies were chosen based on a number of factors such as their content and use in previous studies to avoid repetition. A total of eight policies were chosen and accessed from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Bangladesh Ministry of Law (Figure 1). Some of the policies are more broad environmental acts that focus on multiple issues, while some are more heavily focused on fisheries and aquaculture. The policies were evaluated on whether or not they properly address environmental concerns about the aquaculture industry. In addition to this, a conceptual content analysis was conducted on five of the policies to help visualize what themes are emphasized in them. The analysis was broken into three categories: environment, equity, and economics. Any words or phrases that fit under these categories were recorded for their frequency. A set of rules needed to be developed for this analysis, such as determining which parts of the policies would not be used (table of contents, definition sections, etc.). The data collected was then formed into different graphs to help convey what themes were repeated the most.
CONCLUSION
Figure 3. This graph shows what different themes/phrases in the content analysis were used and how frequently they were mentioned.
RESULTS
In Figure 2, we can see that only two of the policies mention anything about equity. All the policies address environmental concerns, and three of the policies discuss economic aspects. The National Fisheries Policies and the National Forest Policy are the only two policies that discuss all three categories. The National Fisheries Policy is also the only policy that mentions economic related terms more that equity and environment. The most mentioned themes in these policies are conservation, pollution and waste, and fisheries production (as shown in Figure 3). The least mentioned theme is mangroves, which was only brought up 3 times throughout the policies. Figure 1. Policies that address Bangladesh’s aquaculture industry and environment.
While there have been many policies regarding the aquaculture industry, they seem to gloss over the root causes of environmental destruction. The focus seems to be on expanding the industry. While this is understandable because this industry provides employment and food for millions, there does not seem to be proper preventative measures in place to ensure the sustainability of this sector. In order for Bangladesh's aquaculture industry to sustain the lives of millions, there needs to stricter measures in place to ensure the environment can handle the pressure.
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