SAIME
SCHEME - ENVIRONMENT
News:
West Bengal’s Chaital
turns a new leaf with mangrove plantation for sustainable aquaculture
What's
in the news?
● About
35 farmers in the Chaital village in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district
have been guided by experts to plant more mangrove trees for dense foliage
leading to high shrimp yield.
Key
takeaways:
● Under
the initiative, Sustainable Aquaculture
In Mangrove Ecosystem (SAIME), farmers have taken up cultivation of shrimp
at 20 hectares at Chaital in West Bengal’s
North 24 Parganas, and 10 hectares at Madhabpur in adjoining South 24 Parganas.
● They
are also helpful in restoring the mangroves as well.
● A
research program on the contribution of mangrove leaf litter in the nutritional
dynamics in SAIME ponds has been initiated in collaboration with the Centre for
Excellence in Blue Economy (CoE-BE) of the Indian Institute of Science
Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata.
About
SAIME:
● The
community-based initiative of
sustainable shrimp cultivation is being conceived by NEWS and Global Nature
Fund (GNF), Naturland Bangladesh Environment and Development Society (BEDS).
● It
was started in 2019 and had established a collaborative ecosystem integrating
several key stakeholders from government departments, academia, and research
institutes for co-creation and comprehensive advancement of this project.
Shrimp
Farming in Mangroves:
● Fishing,
particularly shrimp cultivation, is one
of the key occupations of the people of Sundarbans, which is a complex
network of rivers and low-lying islands that face a tide surge twice a day.
● Shrimp
cultivation is practiced in about 15,000 to 20,000 hectares of the unique
ecosystem in India.
● Sundarbans
forest is about 10,000 sq. km across India and Bangladesh, of which 40% lies in
India.
Further Reference - Sundarbans