Update on the fish stock situation in the Tonle Sap Lake from the Tonle Sap scape manager for Conservation International-Cambodia.
Slightly encouraging.

Field notes from “Cambodia’s beating heart”
by Sokrith Heng
May 9, 2018
Nicknamed Cambodia’s “beating heart,” the vast Tonle Sap Lake is Southeast Asia’s largest. Now, the country is trying to stop the loss of its lifeblood: the fish that thrive in these waters.

Each year, during the monsoon season, the Tonle Sap more than quadruples in size. For the 3 million people who call its floodplain home, those seasonal floods bring food: The Tonle Sap and Cambodia’s other inland fisheries yield 500,000 tons of fish each year, worth an estimated $2 billion annually.

But for years, fish stocks have been declining.

Climate change, upstream dams and illegal and unregulated fishing are threatening the food and financial security of the Tonle Sap Lake communities. In the unusually long, hot and dry summer of 2016, nearly a third of the seasonally flooded forests around Tonle Sap were burned in wildfires started to harvest charcoal, damaging critical habitat that the lake’s more than 200 species of fish rely on.


[However]...
The efforts, it seems, are paying off: From 2010 to 2015, monitoring of fish catch in Srey Choek shows that the minimum catch recorded increased a staggering 300 percent from 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) to 6 kg (13.2 pounds). For the region’s poverty-stricken fishers, that means more food and better incomes for families.

https://blog.conservation.org/2018/05/f ... ing-heart/

Great news, thanks for sharing.

that genius wrote: ↑Thu May 10, 2018 6:04 pm Great news, thanks for sharing.

From 2010 to 2015, monitoring of fish catch in Srey Choek shows that the minimum catch recorded increased a staggering 300 percent from 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) to 6 kg (13.2 pounds).


And we can expect more great news when the 2015 to 2020 figures are released.?

What goes up must come down.

Ummm, I'm sorry, I think it's just a symptom of the moral decay that's gnawing on the heart of this.....plannnnnet!

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Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake Under Threat
August 15, 2019
By: Tyler Roney

In July the Mekong River, the precious lifeline for four Southeast Asian countries and China’s Yunnan Province, fell to its lowest levels in 100 years, the victim of increasing climate change, agricultural runoff and a plethora of upstream dams that threaten its existence.

The rains have finally come, but the worst casualties of a tamed Mekong are due for Cambodia’s 125-km-long Tonle Sap Lake, where life above and below the water relies on the flood pulse of the river. Now more than ever, experts are wondering how much pulse is left.

“Traditionally the annual reversal of the Tonle Sap Lake happens in late July or early August, but with this year’s drought, the reversal will come late or perhaps not at all,” said Brian Eyler, the Energy, Water, Sustainability Program Director for the Washington, DC-based Stimson Center. When the Mekong floods, it reverses the flow of the river and puts 11,000 to 16,000 sq km underwater, producing one of the most intense seasonal changes in the world. The reversal transforms the map from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap and supports globally important colonies of endangered waterbirds and giant snakehead fish alike — as well as the millions who rely on its bounty.

“I predict a lower fish catch this year than last year — how much lower is unknown and depends on many complicated factors,” Eyler said. “But if the reversal were not to happen, then not only would this year’s fish catch be stunted, but the entire ecosystem of the Tonle Sap will be put in jeopardy, possibly gravely reducing fish catches into perpetuity.”

The capricious flow of the Mekong has always affected the wildlife and people of Tonle Sap, and now some are wondering how long the people — including hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese — can survive in the doomed floodplain.

“It’s all about the flood pulse,” said Taber Hand of Wetlands Work!, a social enterprise that designs and builds innovative treatment systems and promotes wetlands awareness. “The monsoon-driven flood pulse makes the Tonle Sap the most complex hydro-ecological system in the world and, by far, the most productive freshwater fishery in the world.” The result of that seven- to eight-meter rise in the water is the most important freshwater fishery in Southeast Asia. More than 1,000 species of fish have adapted to this unique floodplain ecosystem.

“No other country on the planet has this scale of an economically free source of fish, perhaps sufficient for 60 to 75 percent of all national dietary needs in protein and fat,” Hand said. “All this is dependent on the size and timing of the Mekong River’s flood pulse.”
Full article: https://www.asiasentinel.com/econ-busin ... er-threat/

the chinese have built hydro electric dams along the Mekong in other countries and now doing it in Cambodia...the billions of fish are trapped upstream..
millions of years of migration are cut off...
toss in nets draped across the rivers catching every size of fish...
Prahok was once made with large fish...
now, made with small fish...
every dam on the Mekong destroys the eco-system around it...
just watch the fishing shows on tv...
river monsters for years was going around the planet looking for giants...now, the same guy is on the same rivers just looking for any fish at all...
I fished for salmon in Alaska on the Kenai river.the most famous salmon river in the world.
I was a chef in LA and we bought salmon from the Columbia River and Copper River...
tearing down old dams have given these fish a chance in the lower 48..along with sturgeon...
I knew when I was fishing off the coast of Cambodia that the locals were taking the smallest fish ...any fish....it reminded me of Vietnamese people I fished near in Kansas in the 80s who had to be taught about local size limits...and to throw back fish that did not measure up...
I think Asia is finished when it comes to fishing.
China has destroyed their own rivers and fished them out...What do you think will happen with them leading the way here?
In Africa, I saw game preserves public and private trying to preserve the wild life...poachers did not give up...hungry people don't want to hear about extinction... unless you have something to feed them they will eat...
soylent orange and green is a great idea...

j57 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 18, 2019 11:37 pm the chinese have built hydro electric dams along the Mekong in other countries and now doing it in Cambodia...the billions of fish are trapped upstream..
millions of years of migration are cut off...
toss in nets draped across the rivers catching every size of fish...
Prahok was once made with large fish...
now, made with small fish...
every dam on the Mekong destroys the eco-system around it...
just watch the fishing shows on tv...
river monsters for years was going around the planet looking for giants...now, the same guy is on the same rivers just looking for any fish at all...
I fished for salmon in Alaska on the Kenai river.the most famous salmon river in the world.
I was a chef in LA and we bought salmon from the Columbia River and Copper River...
tearing down old dams have given these fish a chance in the lower 48..along with sturgeon...
I knew when I was fishing off the coast of Cambodia that the locals were taking the smallest fish ...any fish....it reminded me of Vietnamese people I fished near in Kansas in the 80s who had to be taught about local size limits...and to throw back fish that did not measure up...
I think Asia is finished when it comes to fishing.
China has destroyed their own rivers and fished them out...What do you think will happen with them leading the way here?
In Africa, I saw game preserves public and private trying to preserve the wild life...poachers did not give up...hungry people don't want to hear about extinction... unless you have something to feed them they will eat...
soylent orange and green is a great idea...

Strangely enough I agree with you. And I put all the blame on Mc Donalds, If they had restaurants in all the villages hungry people would leave those fish and wildlife alone.

let them eat fish cakes