Fifty more fish sanctuaries are being developed on 30 hectares of water body aimed at protecting fish biodiversity through stocking of native fish fingerlings in the division.

Forty have already been established on 24 hectares of water body under a five-year project titled "Fisheries Development in Rajshahi division" that is being implemented in 65 upazilas of eight districts in the division.

Under the project, 76 fish sanctuaries are reactivated and 74 others are also being reactivated.

Md Kamrul Hassan, Director of the project, told BSS that they have already excavated 58 beels on 11.75 hectares of water body and 22 more will be excavated.

Being implemented by the Department of Fisheries (DoF) at a cost of around Taka 47.47 crore, the project is intended to protect the endangered fish species through establishing fish sanctuaries and renovating the existing ones.
 
The project has been undertaken to boost production of fish along with enhancing its productivity and habitat development through establishing 1,860 demonstration farms and 80 beel nurseries after re-excavation.
 
Kamrul Hassan said generating more scopes of improving living and livelihood conditions and poverty reduction of the marginalized population, employment generation for the youths and transferring modern technologies among the fishermen are the ultimate goals of the project.
 
Around 2,000 distressed fishermen are being engaged in various alternative income generation activities in phases for reducing overfishing in the natural water bodies.
 
Training, seminar and workshop are being arranged for the beneficiary farmers in 1,472 batches for transferring knowledge with modern technologies among them.
 
A total of 240 Kuchia demonstration farms will be established for making the ethnic minority people self-reliant through boosting its production.
 
A number of 480 farms for demonstration of various small fish species including Shing, Magur, Gulsha and Pabda while 480 farms for demonstrating Koi, Tilapia and Pungus will be set up for production expansion of the tasty and high market valued fish species.
 
The project has also provision of 180 cage and pen fish farming demonstrations for the best uses of the open water bodies through promoting cage fish culture with capacity development of the people living alongside the river banks.
 
As a result of establishing new sanctuaries and renovation of the existing ones, production of the native fish species will be enhanced.
 
Requisite number of beel nurseries will be established for boosting fish production to meet the gradually mounting protein demands.

Fish production will be enhanced to five to six tonnes per hectare through infrastructure development in natural water bodies together with transferring modern technologies among the farmers.
 
In phases, 62,000 beneficiary fishermen are being imparted training on modern fish farming technologies aimed at building their capacities.
 
Kamrul Hassan mentioned that climate change, employment generation, biodiversity conservation and sustainable uses of updated technologies are the main challenges towards implementation of the project.
 
He also said the project is intended to protect the endangered fish species through installation of fish sanctuaries and habitats.
 
Upon successful implementation by this year-end, the project, as a whole, will play a vital role towards improvement of the fisheries sector besides achieving the sustainable development goals, he added.