March 28,2022
MYANMAR’S water sources such as rivers, creeks, lakes and seas are rich in resources of aquaculture such as fish, shrimps and other water living beings. These water creatures can meet the meat and fish demand of the country as well as earn incomes from foreign exchange through exportation.
Currently, fishermen and fishing trawlers in various sizes capture the aquaculture on both manageable and commercial scales. The seized aquacultures are distributed to the domestic market and international ones.
As part of preventing the lessening of aquaculture deposits in the territorial area, the Fisheries Department issues prohibitions to capture the designated sizes of fingerlings and prawns in rivers, creeks and lakes in the hatching season with some slogans: don’t capture hatching fish with eggs for regenerations, and free fingerlings from capturing for non-depletion and regular consumption. If one captures a fish with eggs before hatching, it will bring hundreds of thousands of fish loss in the deposits. As such, officials from the relevant departments raise public awareness for the conservation of aquaculture species during the fish hatching seasons in order to accumulate marine resources. Production of marine products is based on various kinds of inland water sources and inshore and offshore waters.
Excessive capturing of water creatures may cause environmental degradation. Some fishermen extremely extracted aquaculture from the Myanmar seas, causing the rareness of marine resources within four decades. There were 1 million tonnes of water resources including fish and shrimps at the Myanmar seas, according to the survey conducted in 1979, compared with some 160,000 tonnes of those resources in 2008.
Such data showed some 80 per cent decline of above marine resources and 60 per cent of underwater resources because of extracting the aquaculture beyond the consumption rate. The research on the existence of water sources in the Myanmar seas was conducted three times from 1979 to 2008. Based on the results of research, the authorities warned those from the fishery arena not to extract marine products more than the restricted volumes. Indeed, fishermen and businesspersons need to have the awareness to conserve aquaculture under the long-term plan. That is why it is necessary to carefully and systematically catch aquaculture such as fish and shrimps under the rules of limited volume as part of efforts to conserve the nature of aquaculture for their growth for the prevention of marine sources depletion.
