East Kolkata Wetlands: A small initiative to strengthen the livelihood of this Ramsar site

A unique and friendly water regime surrounds the city of joy Kolkata. Located on the bank of river Hooghly, the city boasts of an intricate combination of several natural and man-made wetlands. The Eastern range of the city, which is known as the East Kolkata Wetlands, contains a large variety of flora and fauna along with the vast water bodies. Covering around 125 square kilometres, the wetlands are being utilised to treat the whole Kolkata’s sewage.

The East Kolkata wetlands are home to around 3,000 tribal families of Munda and Santhal community. It is a peri-urban facility and most of the tribal families are either landless labourer or run their families through aquaculture. The huge wastewater of the city is treated here and the nutrients are used efficiently for agriculture or pisciculture. It is the largest waste recycling region based on sewage fed aquaculture and garbage farming zone in the world. On August 19, 2002, the East Kolkata wetlands were recognised as a “Wetland of International importance’ under Ramsar Convention. The area can be divided into three categories depending on three major economic activities- fisheries or bheris, Paddy lands and garbage farms.

Apart from the richness of water bodies and its fishes, the East Kolkata Wetland is also renowned for its rich biodiversity. It has been a peaceful abode to variety of birds and small animals. However, the ecological changes and the global climate change have also affected East Kolkata wetlands. Besides this, industrial interference resulted into environmental and water pollution causing disappearance of several species of birds and fishes. Most of the tribal community in the area are dependent on nature based activities. So, the climate change affects their livelihood either directly or indirectly. Over the years, the increased level of industrial affluent, excessive use of pesticides, land use-land cover and other developmental activities have caused damage to the livelihood of these vulnerable tribal communities of East Kolkata Wetlands. It has been essential for all to know the role of wetlands on the lives of the local residents and also how to maintain a healthy environment. The changing environmental scenario has resulted into the extinction of various indigenous fishes from these wetlands. One of such commercially important species is Clarias batrachus, which is locally known as ‘Magur’ fish. We are talking about desi magur, whose demand is very high in the Bengal market. However, the quality seeds of the fish were not available from the natural resources because of environmental degradation and reduction of natural breeding ground.

SEED (Society for Socio Economic and Ecological Development) has been working in East Kolkata wetlands since last two decades. So, the organisation planned to offer a solution to this problem of extinction of biodiversity and indigenous fishes. To start with, it chose the ‘Desi Magur’ fish due to its unique characteristic of the capability of living in a very little amount of water where other fishes cannot survive. It can survive even in small muddy water bodies, where amount of oxygen is very low and carbon di-oxide is high. In wetlands of East Kolkata, the bio-gases like Ammonia, methane etc. also remain dissolved in high amount. Even in such adverse condition, the magur fishes can survive by inhaling oxygen from air through their extra respiratory organ. They can easily live in the paddy fields also.

Since, the natural availability of Magur seeds was very low, SEED introduced the process of induced breeding of the fishes. It involved breeding of magur fishes through artificial low cost technology. Lack of knowledge about scientific ways of cultivating this fish has been the main reason behind the negligence of magur fish cultivation. The market price of this fish is also very high so this fish was first targeted by SEED. The cultivation of this fish through induced breeding can earn them much higher amount of money than what they were getting by cultivating traditionally.

Usually, magur is cultivated for six months. During this time period, the fish weighs around 80-100gm, whose demand is quite good in the market and the fish farmers can earn a decent amount from selling them. In this process of induced breeding, mature male and female fishes are injected with respectively 2- 2.5 ml of ovaprim injection. Both of them are then kept separately for 15 to 16 hours. Then, the testis of the male fish is cut out and put on the piece of nylon net. Now, the sperms are wringed out in a plastic tray filled with rain water. The female fish has to be stripped now and the eggs are mixed with the sperms with the help of a feather. After sometime, when the eggs are fully fertilised, the eggs are taken out and cleaned to remove the sliminess. Following this, the eggs have to be kept in a glass jar hatchery or plastic tab hatchery.

After 16 to 18 hours, the seedlings will come out of the eggs. The seedlings will have to be shifted to a reservoir made of cement or clay. It has to be made sure that continuous water flow remains here. It has to be covered by hay roof. It has to be noticed that the water level should not be more than 6 inches. These seedlings do not require any outside food for next three days. After 3 days, the seedlings can be fed with small planktons like brachionus, Keratella etc. When they become 30-45 days old, the fish seedlings can be shifted to the pond for their natural growth thereon. In a few months, they will be ready to be sold in the market.

The main objective of this intervention was the enhancement of tribal livelihood by utilising the unutilised natural resources of East Kolkata Wetland area with support from NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development). The nutrients of the sewage canals were used as the food for the fish culture. The unutilised canal nutrients were used for ‘desi magur’ culture through bamboo PEN culture technique. The low cost technique involved only naturally available bamboos and coir ropes.

The tribal communities of East Kolkata have enthusiastically learned the technique of induced breeding from fishery specialist of SEED, Mr. Bhabananda Chatterjee, who stayed there and offered them practical training for many days. He has been able to mix with them like their own relative so they could easily accept the interference of a new technology in their traditional aquaculture method. The organisation formed various JLG (Joint Liability Groups) for this purpose, who actively participated in the initial preparation of PEN.

Now, around 100 families of Kumarpukuria village of Sonarpur Block have taken up this technique of ‘Desi Magur’ commercial cultivation through bamboo PEN culture in sewage fed canals of East Kolkata Wetlands and earning a fair amount of money throughout the year. Kumarpukuria is one of the most backward class villages of South 24 Parganas district. Since the fish is in high demand in the Bengal market, the tribal communities have converted it to a regular livelihood option. Among the total cultivation, 20% of the fingerlings grown through induced breeding are released to the natural habitat so that the number of these increases in natural water bodies of East Kolkata Wetland.

The economic condition of these poor tribal people has bettered after adopting this technique. The villagers are very happy for being associated with this type of project. There is a great change in their behaviour and conversation. Their children are also going to school. Female members are coming forward and approaching SEED for some other economic activities for them as the water resources are limited in the village and fed only few families. This has proved to be profitable within a short period and technically acceptable to the community members where they can utilize their traditional skill and wisdom though many of them are illiterate.