Outreach to Fishing Community

Outreach to Fishermen

Gopal Khanal giving presentation to fishing
community (JLewis, TDRF)

Gopal and I set out today to conduct educational outreach. Educating local people about the river dolphin is a very important part of being able to effectively conserve this species. If the local communities do not care, then this conservation will not be successful.

A big issue everywhere dolphins are found, is the interaction with fisheries. Dolphins (and also whales, sea turtles, sharks and many other aquatic species) get trapped in fishing gear, and either drown (dolphins must breath air at the surface to live) or ingest gear like hooks and later have troubles or die because of this. 

Gopal is working with local fishing communities to educate them on which fishing practices might make the least impact on the dolphins. We are lucky because a reporter is coming today to write about this meeting, so more people than just those in this community will get the chance to learn about the message Gopal is trying to convey.

There was a really great turn out! All ages, all genders. They sat outside on the ground and listened to Gopal for about three hours. No complaints. These meetings also provide a way for the local fishermen to give Gopal information about what they have done, and what they think might work best to help conserve not only the fish but also the dolphins.

At the end of his talk and demonstrations, Gopal opened the floor to locals to come up and talk about their experiences with dolphins and what they had done to try and reduce negative effects from their own fishing practices. This was a great idea because it allowed him to showcase certain individuals as examples of good stewardship. One major change that most locals have decided to follow is to reduce the use of poison to catch fish.

People of fishing village listen to talk about sustainable

fishing methods that are more dolphin friendly (JLewis, TDRF)

Further Interviews with Fishermen

After we finished the workshop, we stopped at another location to interview two of the local fishermen. This allowed me to ask my own questions about their understanding about the dolphin, the potential impact they the fishermen had, and their own work to reduce this impact.

Gopal prepares to help me interview a local fisherman 

(JLewis, TDRF)

Geruwa bridge

Geruwa river at sunset. Nepal. (JLewis, TDRF)

We left the village and decided to stop on the Geruwa river (part of the Karnali river system) on the way home to do the first interview with Gopal, where we discussed the major issues affecting the Ganges river dolphin in Nepal. Many issues affect this species, but as we mentioned in the introduction for this blog, the biggest is the creation of dams. In Nepal, the dolphin population is isolated from others by a dam that exists in India, about 20 km south of the Nepal/India border. This is a huge problem for the remaining dolphins, who can no longer move further south than this dam.