WORLD Wetlands Day on February 2 every year reminds us of the importance of conservation of wetlands and wise use of their resources. Ramsar Convention marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on February 2,1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar. Every year since 1997, the Convention has been working with government agencies, non-governmental organisations and groups of citizens to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wedand values and benefits.

This year's theme is “Wetlands and Water Management," which highlights integration of policy approach on water and wedand management together. This integration is very much needed to save wedands from degradation and minimise water use conflicts among various sectors of development. World Wetlands Day emphasises the interdependence between wedands and water management to sustain environmental and social benefits at national, regional and global levels.

Wedands play a vital role in the lives of millions of poor people worldwide by providing subsistence livelihoods. Among many other resources, fish and fisheries are important components of wetland ecosystems and, for a very long time, they have played a significant role in the nutrition and economy of the country. The fisheries sector alone provides nearly 60% of the rural communities' dietary protein requirements and accounts for more than 4.57 % of the national Gross Domestic Product.

In Bangladesh, formal institutions are structured in a top-down, command-and-control, bureaucratic system of wetland resources management. The state established legal ownership on all kinds of wetlands, such as rivers, haors, beels, baors, canals, streams, lakes and large ponds, and took control over their management aspects. Wetlands are considered as a means of revenue earning in the formal systems.

The Ministry of Land leased out segments of rivers, haors, baors and beels that had potential as a jalmahal (fishery estate) through an open bidding system. Usually, wetlands are leased out for a three to five-year period. Local communities cure not allowed to establish their customary rights on jalmahal after leasing. The leasing out of open water bodies has been detrimental to the well-being of poor fishermen, created conflicts and chaos, and reinforced the power hierarchy in the society.

From the mid-1990's, the government and NGOs piloted and expanded “community-based co-management" through various donor and government-supported projects, spreading co-management to about 300 jalmohols. It has been established that local resource users have the potential to contribute towards maintaining properly functioning wetlands that significantly enhance productivity and biodiversity. Despite its advantages in effectiveness and in access of the local resource users, the “community-based co-management" approach has been adopted only in experimental development projects and has not yet been mainstreamed as a formal management approach.

The Jalmahals (Wetland) Management Policy was enacted in 2009 with the intention of ensuring leasing of jalmahals to Fishermen Cooperative Societies (FCS) of genuine fishermen. Provisions had been made for the inclusion of two members from registered FCSs in the Upazila as well as District Jalmahal Management Committees to represent poor fishing communities in the leasing process. Also, the policy indicated that FCSs must be formed by genuine fishers to be eligible in the leasing process.

However, there were limitations in the policy, which include the following: (i) as the selection of representatives of genuine fishers in the Upazila and District Jalmohals Management Committees will be carried out by bureaucratic decision, not by fishers' community, there could be bias and/or manipulation in the implementation of this article, and (ii) as many poor fishers are not organised as registered FCS, they would be excluded from the leasing process.

The policy shift, thus, did not actually change the revenue aspects of the leasing system as it kept the same structure of lease fee and collection methods that were stipulated in the jalmahals management policy-2005. Without significant changes in lease fee and collection methods, it cannot ease the financial burden of local poor fishers to engage in the leasing process. The 2009 policy did not emphasise the involvement of the Department of Fisheries in the management of jalmahals, which is very critical for wetland management.

Lessons learned from previous development projects that were focused on comanagement approach in wetland management provided sufficient grounds to consider co-management approach for sustainable management of wetlands. However, political aspects of co-management to ensure involvement of community in the decision-making process by establishing community based organisations (CBOs) are critical and must be considered seriously.

Based on cumulative experiences from various development projects, the following political challenges were identified by the Wetland Biodiversity Rehabilitation Project, which is supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft fur international Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German government, while designing the project for sustainable management of wetlands. This project is being implemented in different wetlands of the country for scaling up co-management approach to ensure participation of local communities in the management.

• Leasing of jalmahals to local elites with political connection must be stopped and facilitating an easy process for CBOs to enjoy use rights of jalmahals, including renewal of 10-year reserved leases of pilot co-management sites, to the existing CBOs;

• Legal identity of CBOs to become permanent unit for jalmahal management within the formal institutional structure to ensure access rights to local fishers;

• Mainstreaming of co-management approach in wetland management to stop degradation of jalmahals and ensure environmental, economic and social benefits of poor local resource users.

Wetlands are a resource base for millions of poor fishermen of the country and comanagement approach significantly demonstrated its advantage by minimising grabbing of wetlands by the elite and improving governance in wetlands management, which is critical for ensuring sustainability. Benefits of co-management must not be lost due to grabbing by the elite and loopholes of existing policy while better ways of wetland management have already been identified and practiced in the country.

However, existing procedure of wetlands administration should not compromise on sustainability and restoration of productive wetlands and good governance, both of which are best achieved through community participation in co-management.

Therefore, World Wetlands Day 2013 would be best observed in Bangladesh if comanagement approach is adopted in the policy milieu of wetland management for sustaining its goods and services for now and in future. The writer Is an environment and climate change specialist. Email: munjurulkhan@gmail.com