Tonle Sap Great Lake

A somewhat sensationalised account of things by a former colleague of mine.

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Natural resource management revolutionized around Cambodia's 'Great Lake'For Cambodia's 'Great Lake' and the millions who depend on it, a new lease on life

When Patrick Evans first arrived at Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake eight years ago, there were days when it seemed more like a militarized zone than one of the world's most productive freshwater fishing grounds.

"You might see boats full of guys carrying automatic weapons, patrolling their fishing grounds. At times, the lake could look like an armed camp," the FAO development specialist recalls. Long the main source of sustenance and survival for the millions of people that live around its shores -- and even on its waters -- the rich resources of the Tonle Sap were being poorly managed.

Fish, and timber from surrounding forests, were harvested unsustainably, and a 100-year-old system of commercial fishing concessions, inherited from colonial times, was troubled by problems of unfair access, corruption and, occasionally, violent disputes.

"Under that system, after fishing rights were leased initially they were often sub-leased, and then sub-leased again, so people holding rights were under pressure to defend their piece of the pie," Evans explains. Overfishing and illegal fishing were taking their toll on fish stocks, also.

"People were using small-mesh mosquito nets to capture fish, taking too many small juveniles, or carrying out electro-shock fishing with car batteries," says Evans. Catch amounts, as well as the size of fish, were declining -- which meant that there was less food to go around.

FAO project helps government turn things around In light of these mounting problems, Cambodian authorities teamed up with FAO to establish a natural resource management programme in one of the lake's poorest provinces, Siem Reap. The programme, entitled Participatory natural resource management in the Tonle Sap region, began operations in early 1995, thanks to financial support from the Government of Belgium. Working closely with staffers from Cambodia's Ministry of Fish (MAFF), FAO conducted studies on the flora and fauna of the Great Lake while reaching out to communities to identify problems and prioritize needs.

The MAFF/FAO team also assessed the way that natural resources were used and began to draw up plans for strengthening resource management capacity in the lake communities.

Communities take on leading role Beyond overfishing, another key issue that became evident immediately was excessive clearing of the forested land that surrounds the lake.
"That forest is essential to productive fisheries on the lake," says Evans.

"Every year when the lake rises by some 7 to 9 metres in depth, hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest are flooded, which provides nutrients, food and habitat for the fish, upon which millions of people depend. Deforestation was affecting the productivity of the lake's fisheries."

The primary cause of forest loss was land clearing for agriculture, as the floodlands bordering the lake are highly fertile. A secondary cause was a high demand for fuelwood to support an expanding brick-making industry.
Fortunately, says Evans, there was already widespread awareness among Siem Reap's lake communities that forest clearing was hurting fishing.

In 1997, the project team began to help the villagers organize themselves into local resource management organizations, and by 2000 community-led planned management - integrating people's livelihoods with forestry and fishery sustainability concerns - was occurring on around 10 000 ha. of land.

The improved management, combined with a 1997 government ban on brick kilns in the region, stemmed excessive timber harvesting and today much of the cleared flood forest is growing back, says Evans. These developments so impressed Belgian aid authorities that they extended aid for the project until 2005. According to Evans, this kind of sustained donor support is crucial if projects like that on the Tonle Sap are to bring about real change.

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For full story follow link:
http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0922-fao.html