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Taking the Stake ...

further on MPA, it will highlight the importance of stakeholders’ view in
materialization of MPA objectives. As a whole, the paper will propose for a
holistic research in the arena of MPA for Bangladesh.
Prevailing Situation in Marine Area of Bangladesh
Bangladesh is one of the eight countries that constitute coastal area of the
Bay of Bengal. About one fourth world population lives in these eight countries
(IUCN, 2015). A good percentage of people of these countries live in the coastal
area of this Bay (IUCN, 2015). In addition to providing habitats to numerous
species, the EEZ of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal also directly and indirectly
supports livelihoods of about eleven million people living in the coastal area of
Bangladesh (IUCN, 2015). After the recent maritime delimitation, Bangladesh
got approximately 118, 813 square kilometers sea area which is around 80% of
the country's land area (Karim&Uddin, 2019). The country depends on its marine
biodiversity and coastal ecosystem which is more pronounce than many costal
countries and therefore, Bangladesh government has given major emphasis on
the potential of the blue economy (Sarker et al., 2018). Though, generally;
coastal people are poor segment of the population but they have easy access to
marine resources (IUCN, 2015). Socioeconomic condition and landlessness of
poor people of coastal area coupled with easy access to marine resources force
them to live on fishery, specially artisanal fishery. Since Bangladesh does not
have adequate capacity to exploit deep sea fishing, poor people live on small
scale fishing and with the passage of time, the pressure on the marine fishery is
intensifying day by day (Ahamed 2012). Though the total fish catch in the coastal
area of Bangladesh is not decreasing but the catch per unit efforts have been
decreasing (Islam et al, 2017, and IUCN, 2015).
Even large scale fishing trawlers carry out fishing within 40 meter depth
instead of in deeper and blue seas (IUCN, 2015). In addition, human-generated
hazards like grounding, pollution from oil spill, bilge (burned/waste oil)
discharge, sewerage, waste material specially polythene etc aslo affect the
marine environment specially marine fishery. As such the entire ecosystem
including living resources in the marine area of Bangladesh is in depletion state
(IUCN, 2015). Use of same fishing ground by many stake holders creates
conflict at one hand and damages the ecosystem and marine environment on the
other (IUCN, 2015). Moreover, industrial trawlers carryout trawling at the
bottom destroying benthic faunal community. Like many other parts of the

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