Reservoirs Fisheries Development and its Trade-offs with Conservation of Natural Fish Genetic Resources

The reservoirs spread across India are ideal water resources for fish production at very low input costs through environmentally safer and socially equitable manner. Nevertheless, the present fish production from the reservoirs is about one-third of its estimated potential. Enhanced capture fisheries, culture-based fisheries and recently cage culture systems are being implemented to bridge this gap, where stocking or artificial recruitment is the essential management tool. The stocked fishes can, at some stage or other, interfere with the natural ecosystem processes and have trade-offs with conservation of natural fish genetic resources, mainly of the rivers on which the reservoirs are built. Though it is difficult to prescribe a totally safe stocking protocol from a genetic point of view, scientifically sound strategies need to be put in place to minimize the adverse impacts of stocking. This paper focuses on the potential adverse impacts of stocking and suggests means that can help minimize its adverse impacts on the fish genetic resources.