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Participatory Rural Appraisal for Assessing Freshwater Wetland Status and Fishery Potential in West Midnapore, West Bengal, India

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Abstract

In West Bengal, a large fraction of derelict and semi-derelict freshwater wetlands are recorded especially in the arid south-western districts. Among these, West Midnapore district holds the highest percentage of derelict and semi-derelict wetlands (45.13%). Out of the available culturable wetland areas in the district, 22.47% is not utilised for effective fish culture. Fish being a major component of diet in the state, these derelict and semi-derelict wetlands could be an important source of fish production, meeting the high fish demand of the state. With this background, a study based on participatory approach was conducted at West Midnapore, to decipher the present status of the wetlands, reasons of their degeneration and of comparatively low fishery productivity and to offer some recommendations for their better utilization. A few participatory rural appraisal techniques such as, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, Venn diagrams, matrix ranking, rank based quotient, pairwise ranking or priority grid and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis were employed for the purpose. The results revealed lack of proper management of the wetlands, declining water quality, inadequacy of proper scientific trainings of fish farmers and dearth of mass awareness as the major concerns. The study provided a rare opportunity to the local people to ventilate their perceptions about the issues and in turn be a part of the decision making and planning mechanism. Therefore, it is expected that the results and suggestions highlighted in the study will aid the stakeholders and policy makers not only to promote aquaculture in the district but also to ensure employment, food security and wetland restoration and conservation in future.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the local people for their voluntary participation in the study and the field assistants for the survey works. The authors are grateful to the infrastructural facility at Department of Zoology, Vidyasagar University, West Midnapore and would like to express their sincere thanks to the Teacher-in-charge, Parimal Mitra Smriti Mahavidyalaya, Malbazar for kind cooperation during the work. The authors are also thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on the work.

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The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the study.

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  1. Department of Zoology, Parimal Mitra Smriti Mahavidyalaya, Malbazar, Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, 735221, India

    Souraditya Chakraborty

  2. Department of Zoology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal, 721102, India

    Souraditya Chakraborty, Priyanka Halder Mallick & Suvashree Kundu

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  1. Souraditya Chakraborty
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The research concept and research design were conceptualised by S.C. and P.H.M. Data collection was done by S.C. and S.K. Data analysis and manuscript preparation were done by all the authors. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Souraditya Chakraborty.

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Chakraborty, S., Mallick, P.H. & Kundu, S. Participatory Rural Appraisal for Assessing Freshwater Wetland Status and Fishery Potential in West Midnapore, West Bengal, India. Proc Zool Soc 76, 134–145 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12595-023-00477-2

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