Over time, competition between traditional and new entrants to the fisheries, along with institutional weakness have become major causes of conflict. The application of PISCES (used for information gathering under FishCom) identified several types of conflict

in the study sites which are outlined briefly below: Conflicts of this MG-132 chemical structure type relate to who determines the access, rights or entitlements of fishers to fish in a disputed area. Access issues are the root cause of this type of conflict. One such conflict was reported by fishers from Natmura village near the River Naf of Teknaf Upazilla who reported that they had been forced to stop fishing in parts of the river surrounding a neighboring village after fishers there began to enforce a longstanding claim that the area ‘belonged’ to their village. The dispute occurred due to the assertion of pseudo-property rights based on residency and ancestral occupation, over an area of water which was formally designated as

open access. This type of conflict may also occur due to rivalry over access to fishing grounds between small-scale traditional fishers and powerful local individuals, a situation found to be common in all the study sites. As a result of these dynamics, operators of fixed gear such as estuarine set bag nets (ESBN) and marine set bag nets (MSBN) reported having to move from locations where they had fished for generations to less productive areas after locally powerful individuals took control over the fishing grounds by use of verbal threats or, frequently, find more physical violence, and sometimes allowed them to fish only after receiving monetary payment, which is totally illegal. Conflict over access rights also occurs when the fishers of bordering nations (Myanmar and India) enter Bangladesh’s territorial waters or vice-versa, and become involved in conflict with local fishers. This type of transboundary conflict comes to the fore when the border security force of the neighboring nation seizes boats and nets and arrests fishers, claiming that they entered territorial

waters illegally. These incidents are made more frequent because of unresolved issues of boundary demarcation at sea. Fishers face substantial losses when they are arrested. One fisher interviewed in Teknaf upazilla was caught by Aspartate the Myanmar border security force with other fellow fishers in 2003 and reported that they were sent to jail after being arrested and faced severe torture while in custody. Bangladesh has brought the issue of sea boundary demarcation with India and Myanmar to the UN Arbitration Tribunal. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea offered a verdict on this longstanding dispute over the maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal between Bangladesh and Myanmar in 2012 (The Daily Star, 2012). Arbitration with India is expected to be settled in 2014.