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Causes of Fish Mortality

Syed Arif Mustafa Al-Arabi
RECENTLY two items had drawn my attention. One was published on July 16 titled as "toxic pesticides being imported due to faulty' ban order by Shehab Ahmed and Inam Ahmed" and the other published the following day titled as "Terrible Circumvention".
As a conscious citizen as well as responsible government officer of my country I feel it is my duty to uncover the TRUE story.
It Is very nice to hear that pyrethroid pesticides are now banned in Bangladesh. But still somebody trying to find out some hole to market it in different brand names which is really unfortunate. In 1990-91. 1 raised this issue first that Ripcord, Cymbush and Deels are extremely toxic to fish in laboratory condition. I should mention that I was the Principal Investigator of Fish Toxicity Project at Riverine Station. FRI Chandpur (1988-94) and,was a nominated expert member in (PTASC) Pesticide Technical Advisory Sub-Committee (1989-1994) from FRI as well as Ministry of Fisheries.
Initially nobody put into ear to my argument, but later when I showea some of my laboratory results, the committee was convinced. But the multi-national companies protested and they asked me through PTASC to carry out field trial which was almost impossible to carry out at that moment owing to lack of trained extra-manpower and financial limitations. And the PTASC allowed them to market synthetic pyrethroids until my field results come out. In fact, initially these pesticides were registered against Cotton Ball Worm and at that time the pesticide companies had managed to convince the then Dept of Fisheries people (that time, FRI was not established and Chandpur Freshwater Station was a part of DOF) to consider these pesticides for registration, mentioning as these will be applied only on upland crop like cotton. But later, they silently extended their label of application to use these on other crops like vegetables, tea, wheat, rice etc:, very tactfully without prior consent of Dept of Fisheries.
In 1992 and 1993 we conducted some field trials with some locally available synthetic pyrethroid in FRI. Chandpur and the results were very good. Actually, there is no debate that pyrethroids are short persistent pesticides (from different literatures), but extremely toxic to fish if It comes In contact with water.
rains or arUficj’srily showered which sub^wqieAtJy wash some portion of the pesticides even after 72 hours after spraying or broadcasting. Bangladesh has a lengthy rainy season and it rains any time of the year which washes out these pesticides in low-lying waterbodies, ponds, lakes, canals etc. and causes fish mortality.
One Mr M A Jalil. Director of Krishi Rashayan had wrote several letters and articles also on this issue in "The Bangladesh Observer" at that time. When I placed these results to PTASC. there was none to dispute. And our committee forwarded it to PTAC headed by Secretary. Ministry of Agriculture (then Mr A N M Yusuf was in charge)
to put restriction in marketing of pyrethroid pesticides. At this stage, some pesticide companies tried to purchase me ana stop my voice which I boldly refused. But this time popular TV-face Mr Shaikh ShiraJ has telecast my two interviews in a weekly agricultural magazine programme "Matl O Manush" and Open University programme "BOU" and BTV re-telecast this interview twice within six months.
Basically, it was for public awareness as well as forecasting the effects on aquatic biota. Now some companies have become so arrogant that they threatened me. We were asked by the Secretary to explain why we agreed to put ban on these group of pesticides and we explained the reason in two/three consecutive PTAC meetings. But still the multi-national companies disagreed this decision. They put another question, we didn't follow the Fish Toxicity Test Protocol properly. At this time we formulated a new protocol for pesticide toxicity test, which has accepted now as National Fish Toxicity Test Protocol. The last Protocol was adopted in 1970 and moderated slightly in 1974 (probably), but fortunately I followed the FAO, EPA OCED guidelines all through. And I designed the Fish Toxicity Protocol with respect to our climate and resources. Fortunately it was accepted unanimously in PTAC meeting and subsequently the government banned pyrethroid pesticides.
I think FRI has recommended this issue timely and . the future studies should focus on the level of effects on the biology of fish, may be up to molecular or cellular level and it is no more very important to carry out so-called "Broad-Based Research" like field trials with different doses again. It is very time-consuming and labour-intensive. As it will be difficult to motivate our illiterate farmers that they should confined their use of pyrethroids within non-rice crops, so it should be banned. They can't check their emotions when pest outbreak occurs. They only search which pesticide can control pest infestation immediately ignoring the other health or environmental hazards.
ir Agricutturat Extension Workers (Block Supervisors or PPI) can guarantee that they will control the use' of pyrethroids within non-cereal crops by their physical presence during pesticide applications, only then It may be considered to use pyrethroids until we can select other suitable alternative jp comln^tsMhe specific pests like CottonBall Worm. But itis not easy to carry out in field level. This is true that for mosquito control and other public health purpose deltamethrin group plays a vital role (especially for producing mosquito coils, aerosol etc.). It cannot be replaced immediately until we can find a suitable alternative. So. it may be permitted to import deltamethrin a certain quantity for producing public health items only which must be handled by the skilled personnel of that specific companies.
The author is a PhD Research Fellow, Department of Molecular Biology. University of Bergen. Norway.