An igapó, a flood-prone wooded area on the Vuelta Grande of the Xingu River, with fruit on the dry ground. This is where the piracema, or fish reproduction, was supposed to take place, frustrated by the scarcity of water released by the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on this stretch of the river in the eastern Brazilian Amazon. The fruits are lost and stop feeding the fish by falling on the ground and not in the water. Credit: Mati / VGX

By Mario Osava
BELÉM, Brazil, Jul 28 2024 (IPS)

The decade-and-a-half-long battle for life in the so-called Volta Grande (Big Bend) of the Xingu river, a stretch of the river dewatered by the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant in the Brazilian Amazon, has a possible solution, albeit a partial one.

The mega power project divided the waters of the Xingu. It has taken up most of the river and emptied the now 130-kilometre U-shaped Reduced Flow Stretch (TVR, in Portuguese), whose banks are home to two indigenous groups and a community, all affected by the depletion of fish, the basis of their livelihood.“We have become illiterate about the river, and the fish. We no longer know how to read what is happening in the river”: river dweller.

A proposal drawn up by these villagers and scientific researchers makes it possible to recover the minimum conditions for the reproduction of fish, which have declined since the plant began operations in 2016. The goal is to mitigate the project’s negative impacts on the people living in the area.

But Norte Energía, the concessionaire of Belo Monte, estimates that this alternative would cost it a 39% reduction in its electricity generation. The dilemma pits the vital needs of the riverside population against the company’s economic feasibility.

Belo Monte, 700 kilometres southwest of Belém, is one of major power and logistics projects that abounded in Latin America in the first two decades of this century. It is the third largest hydroelectric plant in the world, with a capacity of 11,233 megawatts and an expected effective generation of only 40% on average.

Josiel Juruna, speaking at a July meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science, in the city of Belém, in the Brazilian Amazon. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

The Xingu river in the eastern Amazon region attracted energy interest because of its average flow of 7,966 cubic metres per second and the gradient that allowed Belo Monte to have its main power plant with a water fall of 87 metres.

But its flow has excessive variations, with floods 20 times higher than its low water level. With less than 1,000 cubic metres per second in low water, it lowers the plant’s average annual generation.

To prevent the flooding of the Volta Grande of the Xingu (VGX) and, within it, of the two indigenous lands of the Juruna and Arara peoples, a canal was built to connect the two points of the curve, diverting about 70% of the river’s waters and draining the life out of the curved section.

A sarobal, an island of stones and sand, prone to flooding in the Vuelta Grande of Xingu, in Brazil’s eastern Amazon. It used to be a fish breeding site, but lost that function due to the water shortage caused by the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant, which diverted 70% of the river’s water into a channel used for power generation. Credit: Mati / VGX

The power plant and the ecosystem’s disruption

In addition to taking away water, the project disrupted the environment, especially water cycles, and thus human, animal and plant life. “We have become illiterate about the river, and the fish. We no longer know how to read what is happening in the river,” said a river dweller at a hearing organised by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in August 2022.

Piracema, the upstream migration of shoals of fish during spawning, is vital to sustain livelihoods in the VGX, stresses Josiel Juruna, local coordinator of the Independent Territorial Environmental Monitoring (Mati).

Belo Monte deteriorated the quality of life of river dwellers by making piracema unviable.

That is why Mati, led by some 30 university scientists and local researchers, prioritised the monitoring and recovery of the piracema, understood as a site for procreation, apart from monitoring and measuring other ecological aspects in the stretch most affected by the hydroelectric plant.

An Independent Environmental and Territorial Monitoring team observes critical points in the low-flow section of the Xingu river, whose waters have been diverted to the canal that feeds the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant in the Brazilian Amazon. Credit: Courtesy of Juarez Pezzuti

As a result of their participatory research, launched in 2014 by the Juruna people and the non-governmental Instituto Socioambiental, in 2022 Mati presented to environmental authorities the Piracema Hydrograph, which indicates the flow necessary for the reproduction of fish in the VGX.

This is an alternative to hydrographs A and B, which govern the flow of water that Belo Monte releases to the VGX, in defined quantities for each month, to meet the conditions agreed for the operation of the hydroelectric plant. They are also called Consensus hydrographs, applied according to different pluviometric conditions.

These flows were defined in the environmental impact studies carried out by specialised companies, but paid for by Norte Energía, to obtain the license for the construction and operation of the plant.

A sample of the hydrographs that should govern the amount of water destined each month to the Vuelta Grande of the Xingu river to sustain its ecological functions. In purple and with flow figures for each month, the hydrograph proposed by indigenous people, riverside dwellers and scientific researchers to recover the lower and more productive piracemas. Credit: Mati / VGX

Piracema, key to river life

Indigenous people have always disagreed with these hydrographs because they do not ensure the necessary flow for maintaining the ecosystem, which is indispensable for the fish, the basis of their diet and the income they obtain from the sale of surplus fish.

It releases insufficient water at inappropriate times, ignoring the dynamics of the piracema, according to Juruna.

“The Belo Monte hydrograph only allows flooding in April, but the piracema requires lots of water between January and March, so that it fills the sarobal and igapós, where the female fish arrive to spawn and then the males for fertilisation,” he told IPS in Belém.

The word sarobal in Brazil defines an island of stone and sand, flooded and with vegetation of grasses and shrubs that provide food for the fish. Igapó is also a flooded area of banks and small waterways, with trees and vegetation that produce fruit and other foodstuffs.

Without water, the fish do not have access to their breeding grounds or to the fruits, which fall on the dry ground. Juruna often shows a video of a curimatá, a fish abundant in the Xingu, with dried eggs in its belly. It “couldn’t spawn” because there was no water in the piracema at the right time, he explained.

Apart from more water, the Piracema Hydrograph requires bringing forward the release of more water for the Vuelta Grande by at least three months. And maintaining the flood for a few months is also indispensable to feed the fish with the fruits falling in the water and not on the ground.

In fact, it is necessary to increase the flow of the VGX with ‘new water’ from November onwards, so that the fish start to migrate. “Without the right amount of water at the right time, there is no piracema”, the basis of river life, stresses a Mati report.

Fish killed by a fall in water flow in the Xingu river’s Vuelta Grande. Credit: Mati / VGX

Irrecoverable way of life

The Piracema Hydrograph will not restore the former way of life in the Vuelta Grande. That would require restoring past conditions, without the hydroelectric plant, admitted Juruna. His goal is to rehabilitate “the lower piracemas”, i.e. the sarobals and the floodable igapós with a little more water than what Belo Monte releases.

“The higher piracemas will no longer exist,” he lamented.

There will be no fish as before, the Juruna have already become farmers and mainly cultivate cocoa. A recovery of the piracemas will allow them to fish for their own food, but hardly for sale and income, he said.

Community life has declined among the indigenous people, who increasingly feed themselves on ‘city products’ and move more and more to Altamira, a city 50 kilometres away from the indigenous land of Paquiçamba, where the Jurunas live.

With Belo Monte, a road to the city was built and motorbikes have multiplied in the indigenous village, Juruna observed. Their way of life has been profoundly altered, but the indigenous people are resisting the death of their river and the Mati have added their traditional knowledge to scientific research.

Biologist Juarez Pezzuti, a professor at the Federal University of Pará, based in Belém, and a member of Mati, believes it necessary to dispel the idea of Belo Monte and other hydroelectric plants, especially those in the Amazon, as sources of sustainable energy.

“They emit greenhouse gases in a similar proportion to fossil-fuel thermoelectric plants,” he told IPS. In addition to flooding vegetation when the reservoir is formed, they continue to do so afterwards, because as their waters recede, the vegetation that will later be flooded is renewed.

Their downstream impacts are only now beginning to be studied. In the Amazon, they dry up the igapós, as has already been seen in the Balbina power plant near Manaus, capital of the neighbouring state of Amazonas.

It is a technology in decline, whose social, environmental and climatic costs tend to be better recognised and call into question its benefits, he concluded.

Studies show that indigenous fish species in Uganda – here being caught on Lake Victoria – have shrunk in size due to an increase in water temperature as a result of climate change. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Aug 22 2015 (IPS)

Climate change is reducing the size of several species of fish on lakes in Uganda and its neighbouring East African countries, with a negative impact on the livelihoods of millions people who depend on fishing for food and income.

Studies conducted on inland lakes in Uganda, including Lake Victoria which is shared by three East African countries, indicate that indigenous fish species have shrunk in size due to an increase in temperatures in the water bodies.

“What we are seeing in Lake Victoria and other lakes is a shift in the composition of fish. In the past, we had a dominance of bigger fish but now we are seeing the fish stocks dominated by small fish. This means they are the ones which are adapting well to the changed conditions,” said Dr Jackson Efitre, a lecturer in fisheries management and aquatic sciences at Uganda’s Makerere University.

“So if that condition goes on, he added, “the question is would we want to see our fish population dominated by small fish with little value?”

“We need to provide lake-dependent populations with an alternative for them to survive … If measures cannot be agreed and implemented quickly, then we are condemning those communities to death” – Dr Justus Rutaisire, responsible for aquaculture at Uganda’s National Agriculture Research Organisation (NARO)
In Uganda, the fisheries sector accounts for 2.5 percent of the national budget and 12.5 percent of agricultural gross domestic product (GDP). It employs 1.2 million people, generates over 100 million dollars in exports and provides about 50 percent of the dietary proteins of Ugandans.

Efitre was one of the researchers for a study on ‘Application of policies to address the influence of climate change on inland aquatic and riparian ecosystems, fisheries and livelihoods”, which examined the influence of climate variability and change on fisheries resources and livelihoods using lakes Wamala and Kawi in the Victoria and Kyoga lake basins as case studies.

It also looked at the extent to which existing policies can be applied to address the impacts of and any challenges associated with climate change.

The study’s findings showed that temperatures around the two lakes had always varied but had increased consistently by 0.02-0.03^oC annually since the 1980s, and that rainfall had deviated from historical averages and on Lake Wamala – although not Lake Kawi – had generally been above average since the 1980s.

According to the study, these findings are consistent with those reported by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 and 2014 for the East African region.

Mark Olokotum, one of the study’s researchers, climate changes have affected the livelihoods of local fishing communities.

“These are fishers who depend on the environment. You either increase on the number of times you fish to get more fish or get more fishing gear to catch more fish. And once that happens, you spend more time fishing, earn much less although the price is high, and there are no fish so people have resorted to eating what is available,” he said.

Olokotum told IPS that the water balance of most aquatic systems in Uganda is determined by rainfall and temperature through evaporation.

He said that about 80 percent of the water gain in Lake Wamala was through rainfall while 86 percent of the loss was through evaporation, resulting in a negative water balance and the failure of the lake to retain its historical water levels.

“Therefore, although rainfall in the East African region is expected to increase as a result of climate change, this gain may be offset by increased evaporation associated with increases in temperature unless the increases in rainfall outweigh the loss through evaporation,” Olokotum explained.

These changes have made life more difficult for people like Clement Opedum and his eight sons who have traditionally depended on lakes as a source of food and income.

Opedum’s living has always come from the waters of Lake Wamala. In the past, sales of tilapia fish from the lake to neighbouring districts were brisk; and some would be bought by traders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, sustaining his family and other fishermen.

Those days are now gone. Over the years, the lake has steadily retreated from its former shores, leaving Opedum and his neighbours high and dry, and faced with the prospect that the lake could vanish entirely.

Charles Lugambwa, another fisherman in the same area, has been obliged to turn to farming, and he now grows yams, sweet potatoes and beans on land that was previously under the waters of the lake.

Lugambwa told IPS that apart from tilapia fish, other species have started disappearing from the lake in 30 or so years he has lived there.  “In 1994, the lake dried up completely but came back in 1998 following heavy rains,” he told IPS. “We used to catch very big tilapia but now they are quite tiny even though they are adult fish.”

Scientists and researchers argue that the causes of lake shrinking include water evaporation, increased cultivation on banks, cutting down of trees and destruction of wetlands, while the reduction in the size of tilapia has been linked to increased lake water temperature as a result of global warming.

Dr Richard Ogutu-Ohwayo, senior research officer at the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFFIRI) told IPS that the response to the impacts of climate change in Uganda had been concentrated on crops, livestock and forestry with almost no concern for the fisheries sector.

“It is high time government took the bold step to bring aquatic ecosystems and fisheries fully on board in its climate change responses,” he said.

According to Ogutu–Ohwayo, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the East African Community Policy on Climate Change commit states to building capacity, generating knowledge, and identifying adaptation and mitigation measures to reduce the impacts of climate change, however these have barely been implemented.

Ogutu-Ohwayo who was part of the lake study research team, told IPS that Uganda has a water policy which provides for protection and management of water resources, and “we must apply these policies to manage the water resources of lakes Wamala, Kawi and other lakes through integrated approaches such as protecting wetlands, lake shores and river banks and controlling water extraction.”

Like other East African nations, Uganda has relied heavily on capture fisheries, or wild fisheries, with a tendency to marginalise aquaculture as far as resource allocation and manpower development is concerned.

With climate change leading to a decline in the size and stocks of wild fish and capture fisheries, fisheries experts are saying wild fish and capture fisheries from lakes alone can no longer meet the demand for fish, both for local consumption and export.

Fish processing plants around Lake Victoria, for example, are now operating at less than 50 percent capacity, while some have closed down.

Dr Justus Rutaisire, responsible for aquaculture at Uganda’s National Agriculture Research Organisation (NARO), told IPS that aquaculture could be used as one of the adaptation measures to help communities that have depended on fish to supplement capture fisheries.

He noted, however, that the development of aquaculture in most Eastern African countries is constrained by low adoption of appropriate technologies, inadequate investment in research and inadequate aquaculture extension services.

“We need to provide lake-dependent populations with an alternative for them to survive and that is why we are asking government to invest in aquaculture,” said Rutaisire. ”If measures cannot be agreed and implemented quickly, then we are condemning those communities to death,” he warned.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Fish farming has fast turned into a way for many Africans to beat poverty and hunger. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Aug 5 2015 (IPS)

Hillary Thompson, aged 62, throws some grains of left-over rice from his last meal, mixed with some beer dregs from his sorghum brew, into a swimming pool that he has converted into a fish pond.

“For over a decade, fish farming has become a hobby that has earned me a fortune,” Thompson, who lives in Milton Park, a low density area in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, told IPS. In fact, he has been able to acquire a number of properties which he now rents out.

Thompson is just one of many here who have struck gold through fish farming.

African strides in fish farming are gaining momentum at a time the United Nations is urging nations the world over to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns as part of its proposed new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when they expire this year.In many African towns and cities, thriving fish farmers have converted their swimming pools and backyards into small-scale fish farming ponds, triggering their proverbial rise from rags to riches

The SDGs are a universal set of 17 goals, targets and indicators that U.N. member states are expected to use as development benchmarks in framing their agendas and political policies over the next 15 years.

Faced with nutritional deficits, a number of Africans have turned to fish farming even in towns and cities to complement their diets.

In Zimbabwe, an estimated 22,000 people are involved in fish farming, according to statistics from the country’s Ministry of Agriculture.

Behind the success of many of these fish farmers stands the Aquaculture Zimbabwe Trust, which was established in 2008 to mobilise resources for the sustainable development of environmentally-friendly fisheries in Zimbabwe as a strategy to counter chronic poverty and improve people’s livelihoods.

Over the years, it has been on the ground offering training aimed at building capacity to support the development of fish farming.

The figure for fish farmers is even higher in Malawi, where some 30,000 people are active in fish farming-related activities, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Fisheries are reported to contribute about 70 percent to the protein intake of the developing country’s estimated 14 million people, most of whom are too poor to afford meat.

For many Malawians like Lewis Banda from Blantyre, the country’s second largest city, fish farming has become the way to go. “Fish breeding is a less demanding economic venture, which anyone willing can undertake to do, and fish sell faster because they are cheaper,” he told IPS.

In many African towns and cities, thriving fish farmers have converted their swimming pools and backyards into small-scale fish farming ponds, and many like Banda have seen fish farming trigger their proverbial rise from rags to riches.

“I was destitute when I came to Blantyre eight years ago, but now thanks to fish farming, I have become a proud owner of home rights in the city,” Banda said.

Globally, FAO estimates the value of fish trade to be 51 billion dollars per annum, with over 36 million people employed directly through fishing and aquaculture, while as many as 200 million people derive direct and indirect income from fish.

FAO also reports that, across Africa, fishing provides direct incomes for about 10 million people – half of whom are women – and contributes to the food supply of 200 million more people.

In Uganda, for example, lake fishing yield catches are worth more than 200 million dollars a year, contributing 2.2 percent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), while fish farming employs approximately 135,000 fishers and 700,000 more in fish processing and trading.

The rising fish farming trend comes at a time when the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) has been on record as calling for initiatives such as fish farming to be replicated in order for Africa to harness the full potential of its fisheries in order to strengthen national economies, combat poverty and improve people’s food security and nutrition.

Last year in South Africa, Alan Fleming, the director of The Business Place, an entrepreneur development and assistance organisation based in Cape Town, came up with the idea of using shipping containers as fish ponds, an idea that was well received by the country’s poor communities.

“My children are now all in school thanks to the noble idea hatched by Fleming of having a fish farm designed within the confines of a shipping container, which is indeed an affordable idea for many low-income earners like me,” Mpho Ntabiseni from Philippi, a low-income township in Cape Town, told IPS.

Citing a growing shortage of traditionally harvested fish, the South African government invested 100 million rands (7.8 million dollars) last year in aquaculture projects in all four of the country’s coastal provinces.

In 2014, some 71,000 South Africans were involved in fish farming, according to figures from South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs.

Nutrition experts say that fish farming has added nutritional value to many poor people’s diets. “Fish farming helps poor African communities to add high-value protein to their diet since Africa often suffer challenges of malnutrition,” Agness Mwansa, an independent nutritionist based in Lusaka, the Zambian capital, told IPS.

Adding an environmental concern to the benefits of fish farming, Julius Sadi of the Aquaculture Zimbabwe Trust, told IPS that “fish from aquaculture ponds are preferred by consumers because they are bred in water that is exposed to very little or no pollution, which means that there is high demand and therefore high income for fish farmers.”

As a result, donor agencies such as the U.K. Department for International Development (DfID) have helped to give Africa’s aquaculture industry a kick-start over the last decade.

According to FAO studies, about 9.2 million square kilometres (31 percent of the land area) of sub-Saharan Africa is suitable for smallholder fish farming, while 24 countries in the region are battling with food crises, twice as many as in 1990.

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015 report released jointly by FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP) says that the East and Central Africa regions are most affected, with more than 30 percent of the people in the two regions classified as undernourished.

With fish farming gaining popularity, it could be the only means for many African to beat poverty and hunger. “Fish breeding has emancipated many of us from poverty,” said Banda.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Bakau fish market, The Gambia. The plight of Gambian and other West African artisan fishers could soon see a change for the better following an historic ruling by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Photo credit: Ralfszn - Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons

By Saikou Jammeh
BANJUL, The Gambia, Apr 18 2015 (IPS)

It was five in the afternoon and Buba Badjie, a boat captain, had just brought his catch to the shore. He had spent twelve hours at sea off Bakau, a major fish landing site in The Gambia.

Inside the trays strewn on the floor bed of his wooden boat were bonga and catfish. Scores of women crowded around, looking to buy his catch.

“This is just enough to cover my expenses,” he tells IPS, indicating the squirming silvery creatures. “I went up to 20-something kilometres and all we could get was bonga.

“I spent more than 2,500 dalasis (60 dollars) on this one trip,” he confessed.

Badjie, 38, is not a native Gambian. Originally from neighbouring Senegal, he came here as a teenager looking for work. But the sea he has been fishing for almost two decades is no longer the same, he says somberly.

“This trade is about win and loss,” he added. “But nowadays, we have more losses. Recently, I went up to 50-something kilometres to another fishing ground but still no catch.

“The problem is the variations in the weather pattern. Also, we encounter huge commercial trawlers in the waters. Sometimes, they threaten to kill us when we confront them. When we spread our nets, they ruin them.”

But Badjie’s plight and that of thousands of other artisan fishers could soon see a change for the better.“The problem of oversized fleets using destructive fishing methods is a global one and the results are alarming and indisputable” – Greenpeace

In an historic ruling by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea – the first of its kind by the full tribunal – the body affirmed that “flag States” have a duty of due diligence to ensure that fishing vessels flying their flag comply with relevant laws and regulations concerning marine resources to enable the conservation and management of these resources.

Flag States, ruled the tribunal, must take necessary measures to ensure that these vessels are not engaged in illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing activities in the waters of member countries of West Africa’s Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission (SFRC). Further, they can be held liable for breach of this duty. The ruling specifies that the European Union has the same duty as a state.

West African waters are believed to have the highest levels of IUU fishing in the world, representing up to 37 percent of the region’s catch.

“This is a very welcome ruling that could be a real game changer,” World Wildlife Fund International Marine Programme Director John Tanzer was reported as saying. “No longer will we have to try to combat illegal fishing and the ransacking of coastal fisheries globally on a boat by boat basis.”

The SRFC covers the West African countries of Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

The need for an advisory opinion by the Tribunal emerged in 1993 when the SRFC reported an “over-exploitation of fisheries resources; and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing of an ever more alarming magnitude.” Such illegal catches were nearly equal to allowable ones, it said.

Further, “the lost income to national economies caused by IUU fishing in Wet Africa is on the order of 500 million dollars per year.”

The apparent theft of West Africa’s fish stocks has been denounced by various environmental groups including Greenpeace, which described “monster boats” trawling in African waters on a webpage titled ‘Fish Fairly’.

“For decades,” Greenpeace wrote, “the European Union and its member states have allowed their industrial fishing fleet to swell to an unsustainable size… In 2008, the European Commission estimated that parts of the E.U. fishing fleet were able to harvest fish much faster than stocks were able to regenerate.’’

“The problem of oversized fleets using destructive fishing methods is a global one and the results are alarming and indisputable.”

Unofficial sources told IPS that there are forty-seven industrial-sized fishing vessels currently in The Gambia’s waters, thirty-five of which are from foreign fleets.

Meanwhile, artisanal fishers, on whom the population depends for supply, say they are finding it hard to feed the market. Prices have risen phenomenally and shortages in the market are no longer a rarity.

“Our waters are overfished,” said Ousman Bojang, 80, a veteran Gambian fisher.

Bojang learnt the fishing trade from his father when he was young, but later switched gears to become a police officer.

After 20 years, he retired and returned to fishing. Building his first fishing boat in 1978, he became the president of the first-ever association of fishers in the country.

“Fishing improved my livelihood,” he told IPS. “While I was in the service, I could not build a hut for myself. Now, I have built a compound. I’ve sent my children to school and all of them have graduated.

“I transferred my skills to them and they’ve joined me at sea. I have 25 children; 10 boys and 15 girls. All the boys are into fishing. Even the girls, some know how to do hook and line and to repair net.”

Other hopeful trends for the artisanal fishers include the recognition by the Africa Progress Panel, headed by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, that illegal fishing is a priority that the continent must address.

Another is the endorsement by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations of guidelines which seek to improve conditions for small-scale fishers.

Nicole Franz, fishery planning analyst at FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture department in Rome, told IPS that the small-scale fisheries guidelines provide a framework change in small-scale fisheries. “It is an instrument that looks not only into traditional fisheries rights, such as fisheries management and user rights, but it also takes more integrated approach,” she said.

“It also looks into social conditions, decent employment conditions, climate change, disaster risks issues and a whole range of issues which go beyond what traditional fisheries institutions work with. Only if we have a human rights approach to small-scale fisheries, can we allow the sector to develop sustainably.”

Edited by Lisa Vives/Phil Harris    

Fathi Said and Mustafa Jarboua, Gazan fishermen who have seen their livelihoods destroyed by Israel’s blockade. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
GAZA CITY, Feb 27 2015 (IPS)

The beautiful Mediterranean Sea laps gently onto the white sandy beach near Gaza City’s port. Fishing boats dot the beach as fishermen tend to their boats and fix their nets.

However, this scenic and peaceful setting belies a depressing reality. Gaza’s once thriving fishing industry has been decimated by Israel’s blockade of the coastal territory since 2007.

Approximately 3,600 Gazan fishermen, and their dependents, estimated at over 30,000 people, used to rely on fishing for a living.

Fish also provided a basic source of food for Gaza’s poverty-stricken population of over 1.5 million people.“Access restrictions imposed by Israel at land and sea continue to undermine the security of Palestinians and the agricultural sector in Gaza, which is the primary source of income for thousands of farmers and fishermen and their families” – U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Following the blockade of the Gaza Strip, more than 90 percent of Gaza’s fishermen have had to depend on aid to survive.

Mustafa Jarboua, 55, the father of 10 children from Shati refugee camp, sits on the beach near his boat mending his nets. He has been a fisherman for 17 years and has witnessed the fishing industry’s decline since Israel first started placing restrictions on the fishermen in the early 2000s, culminating in the 2007 blockade.

“Before the blockade I used to earn about NIS 2000-3000 per month (500-750 dollars),” he told IPS.

“Now I’m lucky if I can earn NIS 500-600 (126 -152 dollars) a month because we can only fish a few days each week depending on when there are sufficient fish.

“The shoals closer to shore have been depleted with most of the better quality fish at least nine miles out to sea. I have to rely on money from the Ministry of Social Affairs to survive.

“I can’t afford meat and have to buy second-hand clothes for my children. Buying treats on holidays is no longer possible,” said Jarboua.

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “in the late 1990s, annual catches from the Gaza Strip’s four fishing wharves located in Rafah, Khan Younis, Deir Al Balah and Gaza City averaged more than 3,500 tonnes and generated an annual income of over 10 million dollars.”

The already dire situation was exacerbated during last year’s July-August war with Israel, reducing the area in which the fishermen can fish to six nautical miles. After the Oslo agreement in 1993, the distance had been 20 nautical miles.

However, fishermen are still being shot at and killed and injured even within that 6-mile nautical zone.

Jarboua pointed to his boat and showed IPS the bullet holes where the Israeli navy had fired on him while out to sea.

Others fishermen have had their boats destroyed and been arrested, Jarboua’s friend Fathi Said, also from Shati camp, told IPS that his brother had been arrested by the Israelis several weeks ago while only five nautical miles out to sea.

Sami Al Quka, 35, from Shati had his hand blown off when the Israeli navy shot at him while he was within the approved fishing zone.

Brother Ibrahim Al Quka, 55, said he used to earn about 50-100 dollars a day before Israel’s blockade.

“Now on a good day I only earn about 30 dollars and then I can buy food for my family for a few days. After that I have to rely on the United Nations to survive,” Al Quka told IPS.

Oxfam GB confirms the fishermen’s claims: “Even when fishing within the six mile restriction, fishermen face being shot or arrested by the Israeli navy. In the first half of 2014, there were at least 177 incidents of naval fire against fishermen – nearly as many as in all of 2013.”

OCHA reported in its weekly Humanitarian Report in mid-February that “incidents involving Israeli forces opening fire into the Access Restricted Areas (ARAs) on land and at sea continued on a daily basis, with at least 17 such incidents reported during the week.”

“In at least two incidents,” said the report, “Israeli naval forces opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats reportedly sailing within the Israeli-declared six nautical mile fishing limit, forcing them ashore.

“Access restrictions imposed by Israel at land and sea continue to undermine the security of Palestinians and the agricultural sector in Gaza, which is the primary source of income for thousands of farmers and fishermen and their families.”

Gaza’s farmers are also unable to access their land near the borders with Israel which is imposing “security zones” of up to 1.5 km in some of Gaza’s most fertile land. Dozens of farmers have been shot and killed or injured after trying to reach their farms.

The Gaza Strip’s dense population is crammed into an area 6-12 km wide by 41 km in length.

Gaza’s struggling economy has been further battered by Israel’s almost complete ban on exports, including manufactured goods and agricultural products which formed a major part of its economy, and imports.

“Severe trade restrictions on both imports and exports have stifled the private sector, forcing several thousands of businesses to close in the past few years,” according to the ‘GAZA Detailed Needs Assessment (DNA) and Recovery Framework: Social Protection Sub-Sector‘ report produced by the Palestinian Government, European Union, World Bank and the United Nations.

“Since the economic blockade (which Egypt has now joined) was put in place in 2007, exports from Gaza have dropped by 97 per cent,” added the report. “Even companies that are still operating can only produce at high risk and with limited profit, due to elevated production costs, widespread power cuts and the almost complete ban on exports.”

“The basic needs of Gazans are not being met,” Arwa Mhanna from Oxfam told IPS. “Poverty is deepening, vital services have been affected and livelihoods crippled. The situation is moving towards more violence and further humanitarian tragedy.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

The Caribbean's fishing industry provides direct employment for more than 120,000 people and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of others – particularly women – in processing, marketing, boat-building, net-making and other support services. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
PYEONGCHANG, Republic of Korea, Oct 9 2014 (IPS)

Scientists here are warning Caribbean countries, where the fisheries sector is an important source of livelihoods and sustenance, that they should pay close attention to a new international report released Wednesday on ocean acidification.

The report, published by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), coincides with the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12) being held here from Oct. 6-17.We’re in a world where the ocean is acidifying very, very, very rapidly and so we need to move very, very quickly.” -- Dr. Carol Turley

“Ocean acidification can have quite specific impacts on certain fisheries, and so actually ocean acidification is especially important for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and people that rely on specific types of fishery or some type of organism,” Dr. S. J. Hennige, the lead editor of the report, told IPS.

“There are variable responses with organisms with regard to ocean acidification, but for the ones which are negatively affected by it, if you are reliant on just that one type of fish then it could have very large impacts and you may have to actually switch to a different organism or something like that.”

In the CARICOM region, the local population is highly dependent on fish for economic and social development. This resource also contributes significantly to food security, poverty alleviation, employment, foreign exchange earnings, development and stability of rural and coastal communities, culture, recreation and tourism.

The subsector provides direct employment for more than 120,000 fishers and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of others – particularly women – in processing, marketing, boat-building, net-making and other support services.

In the report, an international team of 30 experts, led by UK scientists, has concluded that ocean acidification is already underway, and it is now nearly inevitable that it will worsen, causing widespread impacts, mostly deleterious, on marine organisms and ecosystems, and on the goods and services they provide.

David Obura, director of Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean, said food security, in the Caribbean and other regions of the world where there is heavy reliance on the fisheries sector, is threatened.

“Ocean acidification changes the chemistry of the sea water which means that how fish grow is affected and usually negatively,” Obura told IPS. “So productivity will go down or the certainty of knowing what the output is going to be, how much food is produced, is less certain so it undermines the production system.”

Ten years ago, only a handful of researchers were investigating the biological impacts of ocean acidification. Whilst their results gave cause for concern, it was clear that a lot more measurements and experiments were needed.

Around a thousand published studies later, it has now been established that many marine species will suffer in a high CO2 world, with consequences for human society.

Hennige said there are already examples, in the U.S., where an oyster fishery is being impacted by ocean acidification. He said the underlying cause of the problem is carbon dioxide.

“The more carbon dioxide is released from all our fossil fuels into the atmosphere, the more will dissolve in the ocean,” he explained.

“There are practices which can be put in place to offset it on a temporary basis, but the underlying problem is there is still more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere and this problem is only going to get worse if we continue.

“It’s not a problem that is being caused by the Caribbean, this is a global problem and it’s a global solution that’s needed,” Hennige added.

Dr. Susan Singh-Renton, deputy executive director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), told IPS that everything in the report applies to the Caribbean situation.

“Ocean acidification is a worrying phenomenon because it means that seawater, as a supporting medium for life, is changing in a very fundamental manner. Since the ocean ecosystem is so complex, it is not possible to predict the impacts with certainty, but it is certain that the impacts will be significant for tropical islands, especially those which have built their economies based on the health and beauty of their local coral reef ecosystems,” she said.

“As coral reefs begin to decline, this will affect many traditional Caribbean fisheries targeting reef fishes, such as snapper, grouper, parrot fish, etc. that depend on the coral reefs for their food, shelter and survival.

“Also, there would likely be declines in the health and survival of animals that grow carbonate shells such as queen conch, which support very important multi-million-dollar commercial fisheries in the Caribbean. With so fundamental a change in seawater chemistry, it is also possible that other forms of ocean life, as we know them today, could be affected ultimately and irreversibly,” Singh-Renton noted.

The report’s authors said the exact magnitude of the ecological and financial costs is still uncertain, due to complex interactions with other human-driven environmental changes.

They said risks to coral reefs are highlighted in the CBD, due in part to the crucial role they have in helping support the livelihoods of around 400 million people.

Hennige said that the by the end of this century, the economic loss caused by ocean acidification would be “a trillion dollars”.

His colleague, Dr. Carol Turley, a contributing author to the report, said the downward spiral could be reversed but urgent action and funding are needed.

“Who can measure acidification? It’s really developed countries that can measure it so we need to start exporting that knowledge to countries like the Caribbean, to countries like the small island developing states,” she told IPS.

“And that’s where financing comes in because as scientists we can collaborate and give you knowledge but we need financing so that we can help you set up monitoring.

“I am worried that we are too slow. We’re in a world where the ocean is acidifying very, very, very rapidly and so we need to move very, very quickly.”

In 2013, experts warned that the acidity of the world’s oceans may increase by 170 percent by the end of the century, bringing significant economic losses. The scientists said then that marine ecosystems and biodiversity are likely to change as a result of ocean acidification, with far-reaching consequences for humans.

They also warned that economic losses from declines in shellfish aquaculture and the degradation of tropical coral reefs may be substantial owing to the sensitivity of molluscs and corals to ocean acidification.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at destinydlb@gmail.com

Vembanad lake in Kerala is the lifeline for over a million people. Credit: Samson Alapuzha/IPS.

By Keya Acharya
ALAPPUZHA, (India), Mar 6 2014 (IPS)

Farming, tourism, poor fishing practices along with misdirected policies are muddying the famous backwaters of Kerala, one of India’s best known holiday destinations. Nowhere is this misuse more visible than in and around the 95-km-long Vembanad Lake.

Bearing the brunt are small fishing communities which are caught between dwindling fish catch, worsening water quality and the usurpation of banks – traditionally used as fish-landing points – by tourism operators.The lack of a mix of saline and freshwater, vital to fish breeding, has affected fish species.

“Until about eight to 10 years ago, I would collect this amount in just two-three hours,” says fisherman Ashokan, pointing to a mound of black clams in his canoe-like boat. “Now I work the whole day to procure it,” he tells IPS.

Kerala’s backwaters, a tourist hotspot, are made up of a 1,500-km waterway network of canals, lagoons, lakes and rivers that run parallel to the Arabian Sea and are fed by both saline and fresh water, contributing to a unique ecosystem. Many areas in these wetlands are below sea level, allowing sea water to flow inwards.

Major towns and cities dot the backwaters, such as the historic port city of Alleppey, now called Alappuzha, where the Maharaja of Travancore oversaw the building of canal waterways in the 18th century.

At the heart of this entire ecosystem is the Vembanad wetland area, spread over 36,500 hectares and fed by six large rivers and seawater. It is a lifeline for over 1.6 million people living on the lake’s banks.

More than 150 species of fish are found in Vembanad Lake. The Horadandia atukorali fish is found only around Pathrimanal island in the lake. The ecological significance of Vembanad’s rich biodiversity has made it the country’s largest Ramsar site, meant to accord protection for conservation.

But being a Ramsar site has not brought any protection for Vembanad Lake so far.

The waters of the lake are now divided by the Thanneermukkom barrage, built in 1975 to shut out saltwater ingress into fields in a bid to promote double cropping of paddy in areas surrounding the lake.

The lake’s sea water ingress traditionally helped flush out waste while containing flood waters. The lack of a mix of saline and freshwater, vital to fish breeding, has affected fish species.

“Prawns spawn at the mouth of the estuary and baby shrimps are carried inwards into the lake with tidal sea waters, but they are now trapped, unable to flow inwards because of the barrage,” T.D. Jojo from the Ashoka Trust for Ecology and Environment (ATREE) tells IPS.

Chemicals from reclaimed farmlands, illegally discharged effluents from tourism houseboats and lakeside industries such as coconut husk retting have contributed to significant pollution in the lake.

The Thanneermukkom barrage, built on the narrowest part of the lake’s width, closes its gates each year from Dec. 15 to Mar. 31, and this has proved to be long enough to hamper fish breeding and also cause decomposition of nutrients in the lake.

As fishing stocks have decreased, fishermen have begun using methods that harm fishlings. Over-fishing is now a problem in Vembanad.

ATREE scientists have been working the last six years to conserve the ecology of the lake. “We now have 13 lake protection groups, trained to check water quality in the lake,” says Dr. Priyadarsanan Dharmarajan, team leader of the ATREE Vembanad conservation project.

Fishers, whose complaints on the lake’s deteriorating health were not taken seriously for years, now feel vindicated by data that shows low salinity and high acidity corresponding exactly to the shutting of the barrage gates.

“We want both saline and freshwater for farming and fishing, so we have asked for the barrage to be opened a little earlier,” says Murlidharan, member of a joint farmer-fishing forum and a fisherman for 30 years.

But the forum has small farmers whose voices are not heard by rich farming interests.

“Our primary concern is paddy. It is not possible to open the Thanneermukkom barrage a little earlier,” district collector N. Padmakumar, Alappuzha’s top administrative official, tells IPS. “The ratio of farmers to fishermen is 10 to one. Whose interest should I protect?”

He is also short of answers on the ecological degradation of Vembanad. “It (degradation) has happened historically. I don’t have a magic wand to make things right. There should be political will on the part of the government to do something.”

The resorts on the lake’s banks blame the houseboats for the pollution, but the houseboat owners deny this. “Houseboats don’t pose a problem for the lake,” says operator Dilip Kumar.

He also tries to sweep aside allegations of declining fish catch. “You can get prawns as big as this (pointing from his fingers down to his elbow) for 80 rupees (1.15 dollars) a kilogram,” he says.

Handling lionfish requires special care: some of their fins are tipped with venom that make even the slightest puncture extremely painful, though not fatal. Credit: Christopher Pala/IPS

By Christopher Pala
NASSAU, The Bahamas, Feb 28 2014 (IPS)

The lionfish, with its striking russet and white stripes and huge venomous outrigger fins, wasn’t hard to spot under a coral reef in 15 feet of clear water. Nor was it a challenge to spear it.

As I approached and brought the point of my Hawaiian sling to within a foot of it, it simply looked back, utterly fearless until I pierced it and brought it back to the surface.“They’re everywhere now. It’s a doomsday scenario.” -- Pericles Maillis

Within a half-hour, we had caught four of these gorgeous one-pound fish, and the fillets made excellent eating that night.

But the arrival of a tasty, abundant and easy-to-shoot fish on the Caribbean’s much-depleted coral reefs is anything but good news. A recent scientific paper brought new detail to previous studies, showing that a year after colonising a reef, lionfish reduced the number of native fish by about half.

“They’ll eat just about anything they can swallow and almost nothing eats them,” said principal author Stephanie Green of Oregon State University. That’s why they’re so easy to catch, she explained.

However tasty they may be, only a miniscule fraction of the invaders has been removed, while their numbers continue to grow exponentially, reaching densities never seen in the Pacific, their native habitat.

This suggests the lionfish, believed to have been introduced to the Atlantic coast by aquarium lovers in the 1980s, will likely wipe out most Caribbean reef fish in a decade or two, scientists agree. As a result, many corals that depend on herbivore fish will die and eventually turn to rubble, making shorelines more vulnerable to waves just as global warming is lifting sea levels.

As he steered his boat back to shore, my host, a Bahamian lawyer of Greek descent named Pericles Maillis, balefully contemplated our catch and said, “They’re everywhere now. It’s a doomsday scenario.”

Maillis, a lifelong fisherman, conservationist and a former president of the Bahamas National Trust, has been trying to promote a commercial fishery in The Bahamas, but the fish, first spotted here in 2004, has become nearly ubiquitous since 2010. And shooting it while scuba diving is still banned.

His pessimism is not unwarranted. Scientists from the southern Caribbean are reporting seeing densities of lionfish that until a couple of years ago were only documented in The Bahamas, the fish’s jumping off point from Florida into the Caribbean.

In the Atlantic, their range now covers 3.3 million square kilometres. They can reach densities hundreds of times higher than in their native range, for reasons that remain a mystery. “Something is controlling their abundance,” says Mark Hixon of the University of Hawaii. “We’re guessing a small predator that’s absent in the Atlantic is targeting baby lions, but we have no idea what it is.”

In addition to adult little reef fish, the lionfish swallow virtually all species of bigger fish when they appear on the reef as bite-sized juveniles.

Isabelle Côté of Simon Fraser University said that today, when she surveys reefs in the Bahamas, where she does most of her research, “you can see there are a lot fewer little fish than there used to be just four years ago.”

No so for the larger predators like snappers and groupers that are the mainstay of the local fishermen’s reef catch. A stroll along Nassau’s fishing docks confirms what scientists have observed: despite the explosion in the number of lionfish, the decades-old slow decline in the numbers of large predators has not accelerated – yet.

Because they take years to mature, it will take a while for the generation of juveniles that’s being gobbled up now to fail to replace the current adults, who are too large to be lionfish prey.

At Nassau’s waterside fish market, where a “Me? Worry?” mood prevailed, fisherman Carson Colmar, 45, said he’s not seen any significant drop in his catch of reef fish and lobsters. He started spearing lionfish simply because they’re so easy and abundant. “I sell 50 a week,” he said. “I’d catch more if I could sell them.” The fillets sell for eight dollars a pound, compared to twelve dollars for grouper or snapper.

One problem is that handling lionfish requires special care: some of their fins are tipped with venom that make even the slightest puncture extremely painful, though not fatal. So local people, already taken aback by their unusual appearance, often believe that the flesh may be poisonous too, which it is not. That, fishermen complain, limits demand.

In the United States, the notion that this lethal predator could be controlled by becoming dinner for the ultimate predator, homo sapiens, has received wide coverage. Lad Akins, the founder of REEF, the Reef Environmental Education Foundation, who has been working on lionfish control for nearly a decade, noted that the commercial take of lionfish in Florida, where REEF is based, quintupled in just a year to 6.1 tonnes in 2012.

“It’s growing fast, but we don’t know yet if it’s putting a dent in the lionfish population,” says Akins, who is based in Key Largo. Scientists said the strategy of “eat them to beat them” has failed to have any overall effect and is unlikely to do so because spearing lionfish is too time-consuming to be profitable.

So far the only documented successes have come from recreational diving companies, which are literally defending their turf. Seeing how the colourful reef fish that underpin the businesses could soon be gone, they have started methodically exterminating the invaders from their regular dive sites.

In Bonaire, a diving mecca the Dutch West Indies, the first lionfish was caught in 2009, and within two years they were proliferating, according to Fadilah Ali of the University of Southampton. But some 300 volunteers were given special spears, more than 10,000 lionfish were killed and soon their density dropped in the areas favoured by divers. “Today, on a typical dive, you’ll see very few or no lionfish,” she said.

Green of Oregon State said some reefs might survive if the recreational divers go beyond the reefs favoured by their clients, which tend to have many different species but few juveniles. To protect the young fish, they would have to eliminate lionfish from shallow areas around mangroves, which serve as nurseries, she said.

A ferry boat on the Sesan River. Credit: Michelle Tolson/IPS.

By Michelle Tolson
RATANAKIRI PROVINCE, Cambodia, Dec 17 2013 (IPS)

“I prefer the dam to the fish,” says middle-aged farmer Ton Noun, when asked his opinion on a proposed 400 megawatt dam on Sesan river near his home in northeastern Cambodia. Then he chuckles and asks, “What fish?”

That’s because there are few fish in the brown, murky waters of the river, and he can buy them cheap from bordering Vietnam. On the other hand, electricity – which the dam promises – is costly.

“Electricity is expensive because the village doesn’t have it,” Ton tells IPS.

Cambodia, among the least developed countries in Asia, lacks an electrical grid. Only 26 percent of the population has access to government-supplied electricity. The rest use private operators, generators, or have no electricity at all. Private operators charge consumers as much as 75 cents per kilowatt per hour.“Since the Vietnam dam was built, there have been less and less fish."

Ton pays 15 dollars per month for electricity, using a battery and a generator – costly by the standards of a country where 49 percent of the 15 million population lives on two dollars a day or less.

Villagers like him, therefore, think the hydropower project will end their power woes.

But what Ton doesn’t know is that once the dam comes, the fish could become even more scarce, depriving Cambodians like him of their staple food and one of the most important sources of protein, say several NGOs.

“No one consults with the local community. They just say, ‘We are going to bring electricity to you’,” Ame Trandem of the International Rivers NGO tells IPS.

The government believes rural electrification is important “to reduce poverty, improve the standard of living and foster economic development,” as stated in a report earlier this year titled Rural Electrification Policies in Cambodia.

Its two-step target is: “(1) All the villages in the Kingdom of Cambodia have access to electricity of any type by the year 2020; and (2) At least 70 percent of all households have access to grid-quality electricity by the year 2030.”

The dam near Ton’s home is to be built at the junction of the Sesan and Srepok rivers.  The two rivers converge about 25 km upstream from Stung Treng city and are joined by the Sesong river before merging with the Mekong, in what is called the 3S River Basin.

Hydroelectric dams have been suggested as a resource for the electricity-hungry nation, and the declining fish catch has only helped support the cause of dams.

But fisheries expert Ian Baird finds this argument shortsighted. “Fish can rebound with management, but not if there are structures. After the Khmer Rouge banned commercial fishing in 1976, in Laos they reported record catches that season.”

During the famine in the 1970s, Cambodians did not have access to their staple protein – fish – due to government policies that forbade commercial fishing. This policy was also seen as contributing to the starvation and death of about two million people.

It serves as an example for how dependent the country is on fish as a source of protein. With malnutrition rates in children in Laos and Cambodia as high as 40 percent, Baird thinks putting pressure on the limited resources is a dangerous option.

Meach Mean, coordinator of the 3S Rivers Protection Network, says most tribal people living in the watershed don’t have access to information. The indigenous Tampuan people have historically not had a written language.

A Laos-Tampuan himself, he experienced the consequences of dams after Vietnam built a hydropower dam upstream on Sesan at Yali Falls in 1996. Officials released water without notifying the communities downstream, causing numerous deaths and crop and livestock loss.

“Since the Vietnam dam was built, there have been less and less fish. Now there are almost none because the level of the river goes up and down so much,” says a Lao man in his 30s from Kalan village. “You can almost walk across the river in the dry season.”

Speaking with IPS from his small, wooden home, with an unused fish net hanging from the ceiling, he says, “We don’t want the dam because it causes floods, which kill crops and animals. We are afraid of the water.”

The three other Lao men with him agree, though they all decline to give their name for fear of repercussions from the government.

“We live in a remote area and people don’t know about us. Only 30 percent of the people here know about the dam. I hear about it from people further down the river,” he says.

They doubt that the project will bring cheap power.

Laos too is planning to build the Don Sahong dam on the Mekong river, just two kilometres from Cambodia’s border. The Mekong flows through a series of channels that become waterfalls before reaching Cambodia.

While the Lao government seeks to harness energy from just one channel and sell it to either Cambodia or Thailand, the dam will rest on one of the only year-round transit points for fish migration that could jeopardise the food security of Lower Mekong.

Despite this, a Lao tourism operator on an island adjacent to the dam site cheerfully tells IPS, “Most people want the dam.”

Baird says the government could jail villagers who speak against it.

After a recent site visit to speak with engineers of the Lao project, Cambodian officials came away uneasy about the environmental impact and insisted the project be halted, according to Trandem.

“The idea behind the Sesan dam was that Cambodia could benefit from its own dams,” says Trandem.

Vietnam was to invest in the venture as a kind of payback for the suffering inflicted on them earlier, and buy electricity from Cambodia. But after an outcry from Cambodians, who thought Vietnam would benefit yet again at their expense, Prime Minister Hun Sen declared that all the power generated would go to Cambodia.

“The problem is Cambodia has no way of using that electricity as it has no grid to transport it to the cities,” says Trandem.

Laos has the advantage of having a basic electrical grid in place, as does Vietnam, in contrast with Cambodia.

Trandem says, “The World Bank and Asian Development Bank proposed that the countries share electricity. But the trouble is there is no master plan for it – which is not good for countries that are dependent on rivers for everything.”