| Country: |
Cambodia |
| Partner
Organization: |
Japan International Volunteer Center |
| Timeframe: |
December 2001 - May 2002 |
| Contact
Person (s): |
Dr. Yonekura Yukiko |
Mr. Auv Sophiak |
| Address:
|
JVC#35 Street 169Khan 7 MakaraPhnom Penh, Cambodia |
JVC#35 Street 169Khan 7 MakaraPhnom Penh, Cambodia |
| Telephone: |
855-23-882841 |
855-23-882841 |
| Fax: |
855-23-880317 |
855-23-880317 |
| Email: |
yone@bigpond.com.kh |
jvcpp@bigpond.com.kh |
PROJECT PROPOSAL
The goal of this phase of the project is to organize and conduct participatory research that will provide information to design a strategy that will support the transition to community-based management in Fishing Lot 19. This six month activity will involve conducting a series of Participatory Rapid Appraisal (PRA) activities to identify resource use patterns and stakeholders living in and around the fishing lot and flood forest. The Fishing Lot 19 is a 2,438 hectare site located in the middle of the Tonle Sap River in Kompong Chnang Province. The fishing lot area is largely underwater during the flood season, and was once heavily forested, though currently less than 20 percent retains some forest cover. Inadequate management controls have resulted in both deforestation as well as a depletion of the fish stock in the area. The new Community Fisheries Sub-Decree allows Fishing Lot 19 to be transferred to community management. Community members appear ready to adopt management responsibilities, but the transition in management requires a systematic process to ensure that all eleven stakeholder communities are able to participate in structuring the new system of stewardship including the articulation of rights and responsibilities.
This project intends to support the efforts of JVC staff, the local NGO Khredo, and provincial and district government representatives to assist fishing communities to formulate a sustainable approach to managing their newly acquired fishing grounds. The project will build the capacity of local government and local NGOs to facilitate a systematic transition in aquatic resource management. The project will also encourage the sharing of learning with the FAO community fishery project in Siem Reap that has adopted a similar strategy to assist communities in developing sustainable fisheries management and flood forest restoration.
PROJECT OUTPUTS
An understanding of existing fishery and flood forest use practices among stakeholder groups based on diagnostic research utilizing participatory rural appraisals and community mapping methods. PRA activities should generate the following information:
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Identification of stakeholder communities and other user groups that will need to participate in future fishing lot management dialogues
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Description of resource use practices related to the fishing lot and flood forest
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History of resource management in the fishing lot, including prior systems of rights and responsibilities
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Sketch maps of fishing lot and use areas of different communities and defacto areas of control and management
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Identification of fishing lot management problems and concerns, needs, and opportunities
Phase II should also generate a plan of action for Phase III including a process to negotiate a community-based management plan among community stakeholders and local government officials for Fishing Lot 19. The Phase III plan should include the following items:
-
Identification of goals
-
List of Activities
-
Timeframe
-
Budget
PROJECT SUMMARY
Background
The fishery reform is undergoing in Cambodia. The Cambodian Prime Minister released the sub-decrees from December 2000 to February 2001 ordering to reduce 56% of the private commercial fishing zones and turned them over to the local communities for family fishing. The reform also asked the community fishery to be placed at all fishing areas that were given by the government. The local small-scale fishers have to set up community fisheries in their areas and they will become responsible in managing fishing areas themselves. Thus, the fishery community establishment is at the beginning stage at the fishing areas around the Tonle Sap lake under the support and assistance from the government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and international aid agencies.
There are some difficulties in starting community based fishery management in Cambodia. For example, the local small-scale fishers do not have experience and knowledge on this. Even though the central government assigns the provincial Department of Fishery officials to facilitate the establishment of community fisheries, they lack knowledge and funding to implement such policy. There is a lack of coordination between government, communities and NGOs. There are different approaches in fishery management systems. There is a lack of detailed and actual information on the areas that are proposed to establish the community fisheries.
In order to find a way to overcome such difficulties, JVC has started a small community fishery project in Kompong Chhnang, one of the five provinces around the great lake Tonle Sap. Four other provinces are Pursat, Battambang, Siem Reap and Kompong Thom. In Kompong Chhnang alone, the government has canceled seven commercial fishing lots. They are fishing lots #13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, and 20. These private commercial fishing lots were hundred percent canceled and returned to local communities for family-scale fishing.
Our main activity of this phase was to conduct a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) in the lot #19 in Kompong Chhnang as a case study and to hold a workshop to share the outcome of PRA with relevant local stakeholders, NGOs, and the central government. PRA was conducted with the cooperation of Cambodian NGO, CEDAC, in February-March 2002. The workshop was held on 3 October 2002.
Some reasons to choose the fishing lot #19 for this case study were:
-
Since the fishing lot #19 was completely canceled and turned over to the local people. It is clear in terms of border demarcation.
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The fishing lot #19 is the biggest fishing lot in Kg Chhnang located on an island and the surrounding communities include different ethnic groups (Khmer and Cham). Thus, we can see the inter-relation and communication among these communities and their rights of fishing accessibility.
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There is a gap in coordination between the government officials, NGO staff and local people in the process of community fishery establishment around the Tonle Sap lake. The outcome of this PRA would provide one case study about what is happening at the village level.
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Lack of accurate information on this fishing area.
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Fish and flooded forest are degraded in this fishing area.
Objectives of this project and what we could have achieved
Reviewing each objective stated in the original plan of this project, we could identify the outcome as the following.
| General Objectives |
Implementation and outcome
|
| 1. encourage local government officials and people to become aware of their roles and rights in participation of fishery management and in use of
fishery.
2. facilitate the capacity building on community based sustainable natural resource management (CBNRM) by local small-scale fishers of Tonle Sap lake, at the heart of Mekong River
Basin.
3. facilitate the capacity building of provincial Office of Fishery officials in understanding and supporting
CBNRM.
4. raise awareness of central government officials through policy
dialogue.
5. raise awareness of the Japanese public and governmental aid agencies as much as other foreign aid agencies, about the importance of CBNRM for sustainable ecological development.
|
We could meet most general objectives except the point 5, "raise awareness of the Japanese public and governmental aid agencies as much as other foreign aid agencies, about the importance of
CBNRM
- PRA and the workshop contributed in raising awareness of the local people in participation and in use of community fishery.
- They also contributed in raising awareness of Fishery officials in understanding and supporting
CBNRM.
- Contributed in informing the Japanese public about the importance of CBNRM through JVC monthly magagine.
|
| Specific Objectives |
Implementation and outcome |
- Needs assessment and feasibility study to decide what JVC can do and should do regarding the community fisheries issues in 2003. Provide suggestions to JVC to come-up with next-year action
plan.
- facilitate the capacity building of small-scale fishers and local government officials in Kompong Chhnang for community
fisheries.
- facilitate exposure trips for them to visit community fisheries with good practice in Kompong Chhnang and in other provinces of Tonle Sap, workshops, training, and meetings.
- share information and conduct policy dialogues with central and local government officials.
|
We could not arrange the exposure trip referred in the point 3 due to the delay in the project implementation caused by the sickness of our staff in charge.
However, relevant to the point 1, through information exchange with other NGOs engaged in community fishery and through PRA, we became aware that a good practice of bottom-up community fishery committee is still rare around Tonle Sap. Some NGOs referred Leaucaena (Battambang) and CCD (Kompong Chhnang) as NGOs with good practice. In the next phase, JVC aims to know further about their
practice.
Also, we became aware of the difficulty in working through local NGO, KHREDO, which had originally showed interests in cooperating in conducting PRA at the lot #19 in Kompong Chhnang but lacked capacity and commitment to do
so.
Regarding points 2 & 4, we could achieve them partly through the workshops and meetings. However, we also noticed that it would take long time and it would need tremendous efforts to make government officials to understand the virtue of bottom-up approach. For example, at the October workshop, we witnessed the very top-down attitudes of the Fishery officials towards villagers. Some officials were intervening villagers' group discussion and asking them to change what they write down on the flip-chart paper. The officials also try to change villagers' opinions when the villagers presented the outcome of their group discussion. I had to ask the officials not to intervene the group discussion by villagers.
|
| The objectives of PRA at the lot #19 in Kompong Chhnang |
|
The study aims with the following objectives :
- To analyze environment and socio-economic context of the target
areas.
- To assess potential and constraints in the establishment of community
fisheries.
- To provide the recommendation for starting the community fisheries and how to strengthen the coordination between and among local authorities, communities and the concerned
NGOs.
Specially, the study will achieve following outputs :
- Identification of stakeholder communities and other user groups that will need to participate in the future fishing lot
management.
- Description of people's practices in using their resources related to the fishing lot and flooded
forest.
- History of resource management in the fishing lot, including prior systems of rights and
responsibilities.
- Sketch maps of fishing lot and used areas of different communities and areas and different approach of control and
management.
- Identification of fishing lot management problems and concerns, needs, and opportunities.
- Synthesis of perception, concerns of farmers and other stakeholders in establishment of community
fisheries.
- Recommendation on how to mobilize and support local community in sustainable management of fisheries resources.
|
The PRA has achieved the first three main objectives and the specific objective points 2, 3, 4, and 5.
We need to continue to pursue the following objectives further since we could not achieve them by implementing PRA only once.
- The point 1, "Identification of stakeholder communities and other user groups that will need to participate in the future fishing lot management",
- the point 6, "Synthesis of perception, concerns of farmers and other stakeholders in establishment of community fisheries", and
- the point 7, "Recommendation on how to mobilize and support local community in sustainable management of fisheries resources".
|
-
Some lessons learned and challenges ahead
What we learned from our experience during this period:
Lack of good practice in establishing community fishery committees with genuine bottom-up approach around the Tonle Sap in general. Bottom-up approach is crucial in sustainable community based natural resource management
(CBNRM).
-
Lack of capacity and commitment of local NGOs in establishing community fishery committees in Kompong
Chhnang.
-
Traditional top-down attitudes of provincial government officials in Kompong
Chhnang.
-
Lack of rule of law and legal protection for local fishers to speak out and take actions to stop illegal fishing/practice or corruption of authorities. This constraints initiatives taken by local villagers in
CBNRM.
In short, our original idea to expect local NGOs or government officials to facilitate the establishment of community fishery committees with bottom-up approach does not seem to be feasible at this moment. Not only the local fishers but both local NGOs and government officials need awareness raising and capacity building regarding the issue. In such case, it is not enough to conduct capacity-building to one party but it needs to do this to all parties. Also, it would take long-time if we decide to do the capacity-building of local NGOs and government officials first, and then, expect them to take bottom-up approach in facilitating community fishery committees with fishers. Furthermore, there is no assurance that local NGOs or government officials could understand and practice bottom-up approach. Thus, we need to explore more what could we do to achieve this original aim. We need more information to decide a realistic and feasible approach.
Future action plan
Based on the outcome of this period, we aim to continue to explore how JVC could provide support in capacity building on the community fishery targeting local government officials and small-scale fishers in Kompong Chhnang. Our action plan for the next 6-months is the following. The period covers from 1 October 2002 to 31 March 2003, the end of Japanese fiscal year.
-
Look for bottom-up practices in community fishery building in Cambodia and introduce such approach to Kompong
Chhnang.
-
Continue to network with other NGOs and agencies engaged in community fishery to exchange information and experience. Share information with the related government officials of the central government and provincial governments.
The rough time schedule would be:
| Oct 2002 |
Review, follow-up, and write accounting/activity reports of the 3 Oct community fishery workshop |
| Nov 2002 - Jan 2003 |
Visit Leaucaena's Battambang project and learn their bottom-up approach.Visit CCD project in Kompong Chhnang, learn their approach, compare with Leaucaena's approach.Plan exposure trips and exchange programs to visit other community fishery projects for the government officials and local fishers to learn from each other. |
| Feb - Mar 2003 |
Implement exposure trips and exchange programs.Come up with a next action plan |
|
