08 03 2009 : :

Fisheries, Food Security and Livelihoods

The Mekong River supports one of the world’s most productive inland fisheries, which feeds over sixty million people. Official estimates put its value at more than US$3 billion annually. Yet, even this staggering figure understates the true value, as fisheries are also central to peoples’ nutrition and food security. Experience around the world points to the fact there is no way of mitigating such large dams’ impacts on fisheries.

Reports, Briefings and Websites

• Business As Usual: Responses in ASEAN to the Food Crisis, Randall Arnst, Focus on the Global South, February 2009
  
• A Healthy Mekong River is Priceless, Carl Middleton, International Rivers. 4 December 2008
  
• What do MRC studies tell us about the implications of Mekong mainstream dams for fisheries, By Gary Lee and Natalia Scurrah, November 2008, Mekong Brief Number 9, Australian Mekong Resource Center [English] [Thai] [Khmer] [Vietnamese] [Chinese]
  
• Power Surge: The Impacts of Rapid Dam Development in Laos, September 2008, International Rivers [English] [Khmer] [Lao] [Thai] 
• The Value of Inland Fisheries in the Mekong Basin, Eric Baran, Teemu Jantuten and Chong Chiew Kieow, World Fish Center, 2007
  
• The Don Sahong Dam and Mekong Fisheries, World Fish Center, June 2007 [English] [Lao] [Khmer]
• The Influence of Built Structures on Tonle Sap Fisheries, Eric Baran, Peter Starr and Yumiko Kura, World Fish Center, 2007 [Synthesis report English] [Synthesis report Khmer] [Policy Brief English] [Policy Brief Khmer]
• Development and Plunder in the Mekong Region, Shalmali Guttal, Focus on the Global South, December 2006
  
• The Mekong’s Changing Currency, Montree Chantawong, Watershed Vol. 11 No. 2 November 2005 - June 2006
• Cambodia Inland Fisheries: Facts, Figures and Context, Eric Baran, World Fish Center and Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute, 2005
  
• "Give a man a fish..." Contextualizing Living Aquatic Resources Development in the Lower Mekong Basin, By Simon Bush, August 2003, Working Paper No. 8, Australian Mekong Resource Center
  
• Mekong Fish, Mekong Culture: Watershed Special Issue on Fisheries Vol. 4 No. 3 March - June 1999
• Community voices: “The fish give us strength” Watershed Vol. 1 No. 3 March - June 1996
• Forum: “How can they say that the dam did not destroy nature?” Watershed Vol. 1 No. 3 March - June 1996
• Sustaining the Gifts of the Mekong Watershed Vol. 1 No. 3 March - June 1996