What is important is that people are given control over their own resources and know that they, and not someone else, will benefit. DFID and the World Bank recently funded a large Government of Bangladesh programme to restock the floodplains with fish. Technically this is effective but, despite research which shows that it is not only cheaper, but also more effective, to liberate large numbers of small fish rather than larger juveniles, it is still an expensive solution. A relatively low cost, although perhaps not a simple answer, is to take advantage of a trend that might otherwise be seen as detrimental to fish stocks. Much of the floodplain is being converted into polders, or compartments, through which the water is regulated for growing rice.
Major carp can and do get into the polders but only in small numbers.
If the sluice gates, which control the water between the polders and the river, were opened at the time when the breeding fish are swimming upstream, far more could find their way in. This could be done with no harm to the rice and would be of direct benefit to the fishing communities and, not least, to the many rice farmers who also fish. However, in Bangladesh the sluice gates are controlled by village committees, composed largely of people from a farming background. If people from the fishing community, armed with the necessary information to make their case, were invited to join the committee and take part in the decision process, the boost to fish stocks could be significant. But, as Ian Payne points out, this has to be done by consensus and, at the end of the day, it is up to the people themselves to work it out.