> …AND FISHING VILLAGES WITH A FLOATING LIVELIHOOD
Preserved forest, fishing boon, feather symphony and floating villages -- a delicate balance
The inundated forest of Prek Toal has been designated as a core area (21,000 ha) of the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve based on its botanical diversity and its nesting colonies of threatened waterbirds. The core area (zone 1 in the map) is in theory dedicated to biodiversity conservation but is actually intensely exploited as a commercial fishing concession. The fishing lot covers no less than 50,000 ha (red delineated area on the map) and is the most productive and lucrative of the lake with a value in fish estimated at half-million dollars per year.
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Conservation and tourism activities are permitted by the leaser of the fishing concession but there is no coordination for the management of the site, resulting in unsustainable exploitation of the resources. Around the core area lie several fishing villages comprising 1200 families living in houses floating on a bamboo rafts or in houseboats, an adaptation to the ebb and flow of the lake. Over 150 types of fishing gear have been inventoried. Most impressive are large-scale fishing operations, taking place during the migration of the fish out of the flooded forest with the lake's ebb. Kilometer-long bamboo fences are raised along the lakeshore and channel the fish into huge traps. But villagers have no access to these rich fishing grounds, and conduct subsistence fishing in non-restricted areas. |  |
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