Land use in coastal Bangladesh is diverse, competitive and conflicting. Agriculture, shrimp farming, salt production, forestry, ship-breaking yards, ports, industry, settlements and wetlands are some of the uses. Land uses have gone through major changes. Land use in the 1950s had been mainly for paddy cultivation, but salinity intrusion and tidal flooding prevented further intensification. Hence, in the 1960s-1980s, the World Bank and others helped with large-scale polderization in order to boost rice production. A decade later, drainage congestion inside and heavy siltation outside the polders made the southwestern area unsuitable both for agriculture, and, in extreme cases, even for human habitation. However, as the region has a history of traditional shrimp farming, polders provided an opportunity for intensive shrimp farming. Crop land and mangroves were transformed to shrimp farming. This created social conflict. Planned management of diverse land use, including zoning, has been recommended since. This chapter focuses on the complexities of land use in Bangladesh and the adopted institutional approaches.
Over the past 20 years, brackish-water shrimp cultivation in the coastal zone of Bangladesh has contributed increasingly to the national economy, but there is a lack of quantitative data on the effects of shrimp farming at the household and community levels. This chapter investigates the impact of shrimp cultivation on the environment and farmers' livelihood in a typical subdistrict of the coastal zone in Bangladesh. The variables involved with shrimp cultivation and their impact on the land are also taken into consideration and an attempt is made to analyse the patterns of land-use change that occurred between 1975 and 1999. The extensive pattern of shrimp cultivation is achieved by expansion of area rather than by intensification. The expansion of shrimp farming has resulted in decreases in crop production and many environmental problems in the form of a shortage of livestock fodder, fuel scarcity and decreases in traditional labour forces. Under the present circumstances, shrimp cultivation is no doubt beneficial for a selected group of people, but it has negatively affected the livelihoods of landless and marginal farmers, making it difficult for them to survive in the area.
The coastal environment has undergone rapid change in recent times. Change in the state of the environment is multifaceted, but a key concern is the way that natural habitats -principally mangrove forests and salt marshes -have been extensively cleared and converted to shrimp farming and other uses. The expansion of shrimp farming has also encroached onto agricultural lands. Coastal shrimp farming has been practised for a very long time in some countries as part of the traditional livelihood system, but recent strong demand in global markets, together with technological advances, has fuelled rapid expansion. These rapid, and generally unplanned changes, have provoked conflicts among the three dominant resource-dependent livelihoods in the inland coastal zone: agriculture, shrimp farming and fishing.The coastal zone is characterized by ambiguities of resource ownership and a complex web of interactions among people, resources and ecosystems. Conflicts exist between the drive for short-term financial gain and the desire for long-term sustainable development. Conflicts exist between the priorities of people who derive their livelihoods from aquaculture and those who depend upon agriculture. Conflicts exist between the needs of people who may gain from intensification of land use for agriculture and/or aquaculture and other people (e.g. fisherfolk), whose livelihoods may be adversely affected by environmental impacts. This synthesis chapter presents a discussion of trends, problems and approaches to managing change in the inland coastal zone. We identify key messages from previous research and development experience and consider the supporting evidence for these messages.
The principles of integrated coastal area management have been widely adopted and advocated by the international community. However, integrated coastal management has been less successful in practice and, in many areas, conflicts over resource use still prevail. This chapter explores the causes for such conflicts from the perspective of New Institutional Economics (NIE). It argues that conflicts are not only the result of competition for resources, but predominantly the outcome of institutional failures, that is, the ability of institutions in place (if not their simple absence) to address coastal zone issues. The case of shrimp culture development in India is used as an illustration of the NIE concepts presented. Decentralization and devolution, when meeting specific institutional requirements identified with NIE as a framework of analysis, are suggested as a suitable reform process to stimulate environmentally and socially sustainable coastal zone development. In this respect, sectoral capacity building of user groups followed by strengthening of local government capacity to integrate and adequately address sectoral concerns are considered as practical measures for improving the efficiency of current coastal zone management schemes.
Shrimp farming in Thailand provides a fascinating example of how the global trade in agricultural commodities can produce rapid transformations in land use and resource allocation within coastal regions of tropical developing nations. These transformations can have profound implications for the long-term integrity of coastal ecosystems, and represent a significant challenge to government agencies attempting to manage land and water resources. Thailand's shrimp-farming industry has suffered numerous regional 'boom and bust' production cycles that created considerable environmental damage in rural communities. At a national scale, these events were largely masked, however, by a shifting cultivation strategy and local adaptations in husbandry techniques. This chapter outlines the need to upgrade planning systems, improve water supply infrastructure and enhance extension training services within coastal communities to address ongoing systemic environmental management problems within the Thai shrimp-farming industry.
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