Fish form an important part of the Cambodian subsistence food intake; it is caught by villagers in the rivers, rice fields and flooded areas (including flooded forest) mainly during the wet season. In the many villages influenced by the floodwaters from the Tonle Sap, or in floating villages on the lake itself, fishing takes on a more significant commercial role in the lives of the people. Maps 4.1 and 4-2 below show the extent of the Tonle Sap flood and the location of fishing lots near Battambang.
Map 4- 1 Tonle Sap Lake: Showing extent of annual flood and location of Battambang and Sangke River42
In the villages of Prek Norin and Prek Loung communes, downstream from Battambang, people were concerned about climate change, illegal fishing activities, and poor economic returns from fishing and from vegetable growing. As I stood with local men looking across the barren land, which would be transformed by seasonal rains and floods into a vast green plain of rice, smoke rising from forests on the horizon indicated illegal logging and perhaps hunting activity. The men told me
42 Adapted from maps at: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/Cambodia-map-
that illegal fishing was widespread and that it was not uncommon for water to be pumped out of storage ponds to get the very last of the available fish.43
Traditionally in this area, fishing in the floodwaters and rivers could contribute up to one third of household annual income. However, in Battambang Province over 99 per cent of fishing households have reported decreasing availability of ‘products and benefits’ from inundated forests, big rivers and lakes, and from flooded rice fields.44 The villagers also complained to me that this contribution to their annual needs was now being jeopardised by overall dwindling fishing resources, which they put down to a number of factors – the main one being over-exploitation.45
Map 4-2 Fishing lots near Battambang46
More generally, there was a view that the nature of the seasonal flooding was changing as a result of bigger and more irregular river floods, which they blamed on
43 Village interviews 15/3/05. These ponds which are dug by villagers to provide crucial dry
season water storage are dotted throughout the countryside. They may be on household land or large communal ponds.
44 Mak Sithirith, "Fishing for Lives: Conflicts and Struggles between Communities and Fishing
Lots in Kompong Chhnang Province," (Phnom Penh: NGO Forum on Cambodia, 2000).
45 Village interviews 15/3/05; This was reiterated in other village interviews 27/3/05 and
21/4/05. One survey found that of respondents claiming decreased availability of resources over the past 10 years, 77 per cent put this down to over-exploitation while only 7 per cent suggested population growth. Ramamurthy, Boreak, and Ronnås, "Cambodia 1999-2000: Land, Labour and Rural Livelihood in Focus," 48-50.
46 Adapted from: Evans, Patrick T, Melisa Marschke, and Kiran Paudyal. "Flood Forests, Fish
logging in the mountain forests where the Sangke River rises. They also explained the loss of some fish species and lower quantities of others as due to the environmental changes and their impacts on spawning, including the changing river flows and the clearing of forests within the Tonle Sap flood zone. Fish populations, they said, were depleted by illegal fishing, the use of indiscriminate methods and out of season fishing which reduced breeding stocks. Modern fishing gear was also considered to be too efficient and to be “catching everything”, leading also to decreased stocks. A village head complained that the people felt they were left out of deliberations about the future of fishing. He was concerned, too, that the fish were being left out of consideration. The large and the small fish, he said, needed to be treated differently to protect them. Some types were already lost completely, while others were becoming rare. He spoke of the different species which had disappeared and the need to remind the younger generations of what could happen if there was no protection.47
Clearly, access to this important resource is being affected by a combination of climate and environmental factors, as well as human agency such as forest clearing and over-fishing. Illegal methods are also being used to access the depleted resource. These include out of season river fishing by the method of tree branches placed in the river and netting, which was to be seen all along the lower reaches of the Sangke River in the dry season. Much of the illegal fishing, it was said, was done under the auspices of the military and “powerful people” who paid police and fisheries officials to turn a blind eye to their activities, or to silence those who protested.48
Villagers also asserted that they were being unlawfully excluded from areas claimed by fishing lot holders.49 Around the Tonle Sap these lots are licensed to private
47 Village interview 15/3/05.
48 Village interviews 15/3/05; and 21/4/05. It was claimed that soldiers were supported by
wealthy people to do the illegal fishing. The wealthy provided the capital to buy branches to put in the river. “Only the high ranking and wealthy can do that kind of fishing. Only they can pay the police and fisheries officials.”
49 Village interviews 21/4/05. The exclusion from fishing lots was not a new phenomenon.
Already in the 1920s under the French colonial administration, villagers were excluded from flooded forest areas around the Tonle Sap by regulations which banned forest clearing and designated fishing lots which were auctioned to private businessmen. The regulations also imposed limitations on fishing seasons as well as restrictions on fishing tackle. The restrictions impacted on the villagers’ needs and they began to fish illegally. Delvert had already noted in the late 1950’s that due to rapid population growth and a fall in fish yields, the level of illegal fishing had become ‘alarming’ Delvert, Le Paysan Cambodgien, 163.
businessmen by auction, and many disputes arise from this system which excludes villagers from access to a traditional resource. As well as such exclusion and reduced fish stocks, any fish that the people do catch must be sold direct to a licensed businessman who sets the price unilaterally. Villagers incur a 4 per cent penalty described as a “tax” if the fish is sold to other than the licensee. However, although the villagers would prefer to sell direct to the licensee, they lack means of transport and must therefore sell to middlemen who come to the village to buy the available fish.
Illegal fishing was clearly a major issue and has led to violence not only in this part of Battambang, but in other areas as well.50 It also creates significant economic pressures on families due to loss of sustenance and income.51 However, the major problem for the villagers is not necessarily the loss of access and income but the risk they face in attempting to assert their rights, and in attempting to prevent illegal activities. The law is clear on their rights and those of lot owners (whether these are fair and equitable is another matter). Human security is thus affected by the management of the resource by those legally responsible – department officials, police, the courts and local commune representatives – who determine whether villagers’ rights to peaceful and sustainable access to these resources are upheld. However, fisheries officials are reluctant to visit the villages; police and fisheries officials may be in the service of powerful people; disputes do not get to court and commune council involvement in the resolution of problems may be hampered by councillors’ political associations with powerful people. In very large part, the threat to livelihood and human security is thus in consequence of responsible government agencies failing to intervene and uphold the law. It becomes an issue of governance, not only of the fishing sector, but also of the military, police, justice and other responsible departments and the commune councils. In this situation it falls to the NGOs to provide whatever protection and support they can to help villagers to claim their rights.52
50 Village interviews 21/4/05. See also Mak Sithirith, "Fishing Conflict in Battambang,"
(Phnom Penh: NGO Forum on Cambodia, 2000); Mak Sithirith, "Fishing for Lives: Conflicts and Struggles between Communities and Fishing Lots in Kompong Chhnang Province."
51 Village observation 27/3/05. American Friends Service Committee, "Crossing Borders,
Crossing Norms: Vulnerability and Coping in Battambang Province," (Phnom Penh: The Socio-Cultural Vulnerability and Coping Strategies (SCVCS) Research Project, 2000), 7.
52 Village interviews 21/4/05. A committee had been set up to try to address these issues with
NGOs such as KAWP, Village Support Group, Aphivat Strey and the Fisheries Action Coalition Team (FACT) were all working to protect the people’s lawful access to fishery resources. They were particular active in promoting and, as the need arose, facilitating contact with the relevant government officials and extension services. This was done as far as possible in consultation with the commune councils. I observed several meetings where villagers, commune councillors and NGOs discussed issues of concern. People in the fishing villages were generally keen to have training on fisheries protection and to establish agreements with the councils on what could and could not be done.53 One group requested KAWP to arrange for an official from the Fisheries Department to come to the village. The villagers could not make the request alone as it would be necessary to fund a meeting and provide a per diem for the official, since poor pay and a genuine deficit in resources for local extension activities is compensated by rent taking. It is not clear to what extent the shortfall in resources and limited active engagement of officers is due to higher level mismanagement and their lack of commitment to departmental policies and programmes. Thus, the question of how serious senior provincial fisheries and police department heads are about eliminating illegal fishing, or whether they are they part of it as rumoured, remains open. So, too, the question of where the commune council loyalties lay and to what extent they may be intimidated by other powerful people. In the final analysis, however, it is unlikely that commune councils can manage their responsibilities for law and order and the protection of villagers’ fishing rights without line department support and cooperation.
What is important is that the problem of access to fishing resources and illegal fishing has demonstrated that from a human security perspective, villagers must find a way to address not only problems of access but, at the same time, the broader social issues of rights and how these are to be protected by local and line department governance.
In my discussion with fishing villagers, land matters were not raised as major concerns other than as passing references to expropriations by powerful persons and the military.54 There was recognition of the existence of landlessness in the villages
53 Village interviews 15/3/05; and 21/4/05.
54 Village interviews 15/3/05; and 7/4/05. This is not surprising as land ownership and access
are sensitive matters impacting directly on peoples’ lives and relations with others. I did not pursue the matter as there are statistics on landholdings in the region and the general
and of the livelihood difficulties which resulted from small, inadequate holdings. These villages had limited wet season rice land and many had depended formerly on harvesting floating rice and, more important for cash income, harvesting jute which, in the past, had been important to the local economy as the local jute factory had provided both income for suppliers as well as employment for others.55 Although some jute is still sold to a Thai businessman (at low prices), the factory closure has impacted heavily on those formerly dependent on jute harvesting for a significant part of their annual income.56 Access to the jute resource remains, but the markets for it has been radically reduced.