Tonle Sap Lake,Cambodia: A perspective on its transborder hydrological and resources governance

Tonle Sap Lake is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia, being situated at the heart of the Mekong River Basin. Governance of the lake over the recent past has been weak and overly complex, and the basin governance structure has changed over time in terms of its fisheries management framework. The governance framework initially focused on the commercial exploitation of fish resources, but has more recently switched to a community‐based fisheries management, biodiversity conservation and open access model. This study discusses how the water flows occurring between the Mekong River and Tonle Sap Lake complicate the governance of the lake, and particularly its fisheries, biodiversity, land and water management activities. The establishment of the Tonle Sap Authority (TSA) in 2007 sought to address the governance challenges facing the lake. The current study concludes, however, that the TSA alone is not sufficient and that global, regional and national stakeholders must make an effort to ensure the water flows between the lake and the Mekong River are themselves considered a core governance issue for the Tonle Sap.     

Land‐use impacts on small‐scale Mpologoma wetland fishery,eastern Uganda: A socio‐economic perspective

Small‐scale fisheries in developing countries are characterized by uncertain futures attributable to ever‐increasing pressures on wetland resources. Data on the interconnectivity between wetland fishery, land‐use changes and the socio‐economic situation in the Mpologoma wetland, Uganda, were obtained through interviews and structured questionnaire surveys at sampling sites exhibiting differing different levels of environmental disturbance (ranging from less disturbed to highly disturbed). Rice production was the major economic activity at the highly disturbed sites, while maize production was the major activity at the less‐disturbed sites. Of the secondary activities, the Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1815) and Protopterus aethiopicus (Heckel, 1851) fishery was more important at the less‐disturbed sites. The high daily fish sale income ranging from US$ 8 to 12 and the high‐percentage (52%) catch preference of all large wetland fish species were observed for the less‐disturbed sites. A high percentage of respondents from the area of the less‐disturbed sites had higher annual incomes, resulting in more accumulated wealth than for the highly disturbed Nsango site, whose fishery was affected by large‐scale rice schemes. The overall socio‐economic impact of the small‐scale fishery, based on the data regarding the number of fishermen and their dependents, and the income from fish sales and other wetland activities, was low, with differences between sites being attributed to the level of wetland disturbance. The Mpologoma wetland is threatened by overexploitation of its fisheries services, but also overlooked and undervalued by policymakers because of inadequate fisheries statistics. Thus, the information derived from this study will facilitate the formulation and design of riverine wetland‐specific and small‐scale fisheries management strategies.