About this Research Topic
The Hilsa Shad (Tenualosa ilisha) or Hilsa is one of the most popular and commercially important fish in South Asian countries like Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. The fish is widely distributed from the Mekong region of the Southeast Asia to Persian Gulf in the middle east, and is also commercially available in Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait. Its close relative, the Toli Shad (Tenualosa toli) or Terubuk is also a very popular fish in Malaysia. Hilsa is an anadromous fish that migrates from the Bay of Bengal into the Padma, Meghna rivers and its tributaries in Bangladesh, the Hooghly, Bhagirathi and Godavari rivers in India, and the Irrawaddy River system in Myanmar, for breeding and nursing. It formed a major fishery in the Ganges River system until the middle of 1970s. Since then the catch of hilsa has declined in both river systems in Bangladesh and India and in the coastal waters of the Bay of Bengal. Along with the man-made influence, river siltation, closure of migratory routes, over-fishing, use of illegal fishing gears, pollution, hydrological and climatic changes are thought to be responsible for the decline of hilsa fish production.
The fishery directly employs about 0.5 million fishers and indirectly about 2.5 million throughout its value chain. The fishery covered almost 40% of the small scale fishery of the country. Artisanal fishing vessels in the marine waters mainly catch the fish using gillnets. Bangladesh shares about 86% of global catch followed by India (8%), Myanmar (4%) and the rest by other countries. Total annual Hilsa catch in Bangladesh from all three habitats like rivers, estuaries and marine waters is about 0.550 tons that comprises about 12% of country’s total fish production and contribute 1.15% to the national GDP. In Myanmar, the fishery sector contributes to 3.5% to GDP, and hilsa only represents 4.5% of total national catches, the hilsa fishery employs 1.6 million people in the country’s most impoverished communities. However, hilsa is increasingly subject to overfishing and habitat degradation, which threatens millions of livelihoods in the region, exacerbating poverty and reducing access to food that many communities rely on for survival.
Hilsa presents a transboundary fisheries management challenge between Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. With Darwin Initiative support, IIED and partners recently worked on a project aiming to conserve biodiversity and protect livelihoods in Bangladesh through incentive-based hilsa fishery management. At a regional seminar sharing project achievements, scientists and officials from Myanmar called for a similar scheme. Now, another Darwin Initiative project, led by IIED in partnership with Myanmar national organizations, aims to design a cost-effective, evidence-based and participatory ‘incentive-based’ hilsa fishery management mechanism for Myanmar. Indian scientists, especially at the Central Inland Fisheries Resource Institute (CIFRI), Barackpore has been always in the forefront of Hilsa research over the decades. They contributed a lot to unfold the ecology and biology of hilsa, migratory patterns, population dynamics, breeding and seed production, and to some extent the potential of its aquaculture.
The importance of hilsa has driven the governments of Bangladesh, India and Myanmar to develop a consortium in collaboration with the WorldFish and invited Nofima to join with its technical expertise to undertake both short-term and long-term efforts in alarge scale stakeholders workshop held in Dhaka in 2012. Over the last 10 years, a significant amount of research has been carried out in India, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. While some research outputs are visible in scientific publications, a majority is still lying either as project reports or as data in different forms which are of having a great value if published in a prominent scientific journal.
This Research Topic aims to act as a venue for scientists and policy leaders to collate and consolidate the available research outputs on various aspects of Hilsa Shad into scientific articles for publication.
Research Topic Objectives:
1) To review and highlight the scientific progress so far made on Hilsa shad (T. Ilisha) in the three south Asian countries and elsewhere globally through scientific publication
2) To compile and collate the valuable scientific outputs which are available as reports, data or any other forms and publish for information to a wider scientific communities and end users of the research results for further advancement of science.
3) To further our understanding of the related fields of Hila fisheries, including economics, biology, ecology, management, and political economy.
4) To promote collaboration among the scientists in the South Asia countries and those who are working on Hilsa in the other parts of world to develop joint papers and thus help promote new research.
The fishery directly employs about 0.5 million fishers and indirectly about 2.5 million throughout its value chain. The fishery covered almost 40% of the small scale fishery of the country. Artisanal fishing vessels in the marine waters mainly catch the fish using gillnets. Bangladesh shares about 86% of global catch followed by India (8%), Myanmar (4%) and the rest by other countries. Total annual Hilsa catch in Bangladesh from all three habitats like rivers, estuaries and marine waters is about 0.550 tons that comprises about 12% of country’s total fish production and contribute 1.15% to the national GDP. In Myanmar, the fishery sector contributes to 3.5% to GDP, and hilsa only represents 4.5% of total national catches, the hilsa fishery employs 1.6 million people in the country’s most impoverished communities. However, hilsa is increasingly subject to overfishing and habitat degradation, which threatens millions of livelihoods in the region, exacerbating poverty and reducing access to food that many communities rely on for survival.
Hilsa presents a transboundary fisheries management challenge between Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. With Darwin Initiative support, IIED and partners recently worked on a project aiming to conserve biodiversity and protect livelihoods in Bangladesh through incentive-based hilsa fishery management. At a regional seminar sharing project achievements, scientists and officials from Myanmar called for a similar scheme. Now, another Darwin Initiative project, led by IIED in partnership with Myanmar national organizations, aims to design a cost-effective, evidence-based and participatory ‘incentive-based’ hilsa fishery management mechanism for Myanmar. Indian scientists, especially at the Central Inland Fisheries Resource Institute (CIFRI), Barackpore has been always in the forefront of Hilsa research over the decades. They contributed a lot to unfold the ecology and biology of hilsa, migratory patterns, population dynamics, breeding and seed production, and to some extent the potential of its aquaculture.
The importance of hilsa has driven the governments of Bangladesh, India and Myanmar to develop a consortium in collaboration with the WorldFish and invited Nofima to join with its technical expertise to undertake both short-term and long-term efforts in alarge scale stakeholders workshop held in Dhaka in 2012. Over the last 10 years, a significant amount of research has been carried out in India, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. While some research outputs are visible in scientific publications, a majority is still lying either as project reports or as data in different forms which are of having a great value if published in a prominent scientific journal.
This Research Topic aims to act as a venue for scientists and policy leaders to collate and consolidate the available research outputs on various aspects of Hilsa Shad into scientific articles for publication.
Research Topic Objectives:
1) To review and highlight the scientific progress so far made on Hilsa shad (T. Ilisha) in the three south Asian countries and elsewhere globally through scientific publication
2) To compile and collate the valuable scientific outputs which are available as reports, data or any other forms and publish for information to a wider scientific communities and end users of the research results for further advancement of science.
3) To further our understanding of the related fields of Hila fisheries, including economics, biology, ecology, management, and political economy.
4) To promote collaboration among the scientists in the South Asia countries and those who are working on Hilsa in the other parts of world to develop joint papers and thus help promote new research.
Keywords: hilsa shad, hilsa fisheries, Tenualosa ilisha
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
