Fall In Hilsa Hauls Calls For Effective Conservation: Technology-Driven Solution Needed

🐟 Boro Station Machhghat in Chandpur is the country's largest wholesale market for hilsa. The market usually comes alive during the peak hilsa season, from July to mid-October. But this year, the scene has been strikingly different. Just three years ago, the market received an average of around 2,000 maunds of hilsa a day from July onward. This year, the daily supply has fallen to only about 250 maunds on average. Even last year, the figure was around 400 maunds. Local traders say they have never seen such a decline.

📊 What is happening in Chandpur is not an isolated phenomenon. Reports from other major hilsa harvesting areas including Khulna, Barishal and Patuakhali are similarly striking. The decline in hilsa catches is becoming evident across the country, and official statistics also point to a downward trend. According to the Department of Fisheries, national hilsa production stood at about 200,000 tonnes in the 2007-08 financial year and increased steadily in subsequent years, reaching a record 571,342 tonnes. But recent data suggests production has been declining from that peak.

💰 Price Surge: Hilsa Increasingly Unaffordable

The dwindling supply has inevitably pushed up prices, making the country's national fish increasingly unaffordable for ordinary consumers. The average price of a 1kg hilsa was around Tk 1,200 in 2023. By 2025, it rose to Tk 1,500-2,000. This year, the price has climbed further, reaching Tk 2,500-3,000. Thus, as hilsa becomes increasingly scarce in rivers and coastal waters, it is also gradually disappearing from the plates of most consumers.

• 📊 Chandpur daily supply (2023): ~2,000 maunds
• 📊 Chandpur daily supply (2025): ~400 maunds
• 📊 Chandpur daily supply (2026): ~250 maunds (87% decline in 3 years)
• 💰 Price per kg (2023): Tk 1,200
• 💰 Price per kg (2025): Tk 1,500-2,000
• 💰 Price per kg (2026): Tk 2,500-3,000
• 📊 Peak production: 571,342 tonnes (record year)
• 📊 Trawler census Phase 1: 300,000 vessels documented
• 📅 22-day ban: October 8-29, 2026

⚠ Overfishing And Jatka Catching: Root Causes

Researchers consider overfishing, particularly the use of extremely fine-mesh nets that catch jatka (fry), a major factor behind the decline in hilsa production. Against this backdrop, the government imposed a 22-day ban from October 8 to October 29 on catching, storing and selling hilsa to ensure the safe spawning and breeding of mother hilsa. But checking illegal fishing during the ban is a major challenge.

Mobile courts backed by the Coast Guard and police conduct regular drives to check illegal fishing. In absence of modern technology, mobile courts, the Coast Guard and police have to spend considerable time, fuel, manpower and other operational resources searching for illegal fishing vessels over a vast area. The country's extensive maritime territory and limited enforcement capacity make such an approach costly as well as ineffective.

🔧 Technology-Driven Solution: AIS Vessel Tracking

This is where modern technology can make a big difference. Bangladesh has already demonstrated its ability to use technology for disaster management, including satellite-based monitoring of cyclones and their landfall. Similar technological capacity can be applied to fisheries management. Digital surveillance, vessel tracking and remote sensing can supplement traditional patrols, allowing enforcement agencies to identify suspicious movements and deploy their limited resources more efficiently.

Researchers say one potentially useful technology could be the Automatic Identification System (AIS), a vessel-tracking system that uses GPS and communication technology to transmit information about a vessel's identity, position, course and speed. If appropriately designed and implemented, AIS could help authorities monitor registered fishing vessels and identify movements into restricted fishing zones during seasonal bans. Under such a system, all fishing trawlers and vessels should be brought under government registration. The government has already launched a nationwide census of fishing trawlers, with 300,000 vessels documented in the first phase.

🌏 Regional Precedent And AI Integration

The combination of AIS, satellite data and targeted physical patrols could make enforcement more intelligence-led, rather than relying almost entirely on random or labour-intensive searches. Several countries in the region have already employed vessel-monitoring technologies in fisheries management, while some have even deployed AI to detect illegal fishing. Why should Bangladesh continue to rely on random physical patrols? A pilot project in major hilsa-producing areas could help determine the feasibility and effectiveness of AIS-based monitoring before scaling nationally.

Technology, however, is not a magic wand. Its effectiveness will depend on reliable vessel registration, functioning equipment, data management, trained personnel and, above all, the integrity and commitment of enforcement agencies. There must also be safeguards against tampering or switching off tracking devices. Strong community participation is equally important. Fishermen should be involved in the conservation process and provided with adequate support during fishing bans so that conservation does not become a burden on the very communities whose livelihoods depend on the resource.

🤝 What Comes Next

So, it is high time the authorities — the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, Department of Shipping, and Mercantile Marine Department — adopted technology for sustainable management of marine resources. The 87% decline in Chandpur's daily hilsa supply over three years is not a gradual adjustment — it is a crisis that demands urgent, structural intervention. Without technology-driven enforcement, the annual fishing ban will continue to be undermined by illegal fishing that the Coast Guard and mobile courts cannot effectively police across Bangladesh's vast maritime territory.

Overall, the government, fishermen and citizens will have to make a concerted effort to protect hilsa; otherwise, this prized national resource would become increasingly scarce — not just unaffordable for ordinary consumers, but ecologically unsustainable for the marine ecosystem that has supported Bangladesh's coastal fishing communities for generations.