The Global Association for People and the Environment (GAPE) Newsletter Vol. 4 # 4 Spring 2006 “Helping People in an Environmentally Friendly Way, Helping the Environment in a People Friendly Way.” GAPE Organises Study Trip to Champasak Province, Southern Laos for Ethnic Brao People from Ratanakiri Province, Northeast Cambodia By Ian G. Baird Accomplished master musician Phon Dao, an ethnic Kreung (a Brao sub-group) man playing a traditional Brao melody on a ‘mem’ . We are sorry to report that in April 2006, just two weeks after returning to Ratanakiri, Cambodia from performing traditional music in Brao villages in Champasak province, Laos, Phon Dao passed away. (photo by M. Sly) In 2005 GAPE arranged for 11 ethnic Brao people from Pathoumphone district, Champasak province to visit Brao villages in Ratanakiri province, northeast Cambodia. In 2006 GAPE organised a reciprocal visit of 12 Brao people from Ratanakiri province to Champasak province. The group was in Laos from late March until early April 2006, and had the chance to visit seven ethnic Brao villages and one ethnic Nya Heun village. Ian Baird and Ethnic Culture officer Khampanh Keovilaysak led the group. The Brao from Cambodia and the Brao from Laos had the chance to meet and exchange information about relatives and various other topics, including protected area management, music, cultural protection, swidden agriculture tree plantations and land protection. The Brao from Cambodia were especially impressed to find that ethnic Brao people in Laos are allowed to reside in protected areas, like Xe Pian National Protected Area, and that they have considerable rights and responsibilities in terms of natural resource management compared to the more centralized protected area management in Cambodia. However, they were also somewhat shocked to find that the children in some Brao villages in Champasak province no longer speak Brao language. Although this study trip didn't have any direct link with the Co-Management Learning Network Project of AIPP, it was certainly of direct relevance to the project, because one of themes discussed extensively between the Brao from Cambodia and the Brao from Laos during the trip was protected area management (Virachey and Xe Pian). The commune chiefs of Kok Lak, Taveng Leu and Taveng Kroam, the main communes in Ratanakiri adjacent to Virachey were amongst those in the group, and people from 4 of Virachey's 5 Community Protected Areas participated. They went to two important Brao villages adjacent to Xe Pian (Phon Sa-at and Ban Na), and visited another directly inside the protected area (Taong). They talked about protected areas a fair bit. They saw the mapping process that had gone on at Taong village in Xe Pian, and were impressed that Taong has a 25,000 ha community-protected area at the heart of Xe Pian. They were also impressed with the amount of authority village chiefs have to make decisions on the daily management of the park. It seemed more decentralised in Laos compared to Cambodia. At the end of the trip, the Commune chief from Taveng Leu, Mr. Ban, commented that one of the lessons that he had gained from the trip was that in Cambodia villages are not allowed to be located inside protected areas like Virachey, but that they are allowed to live in protected areas in Laos. The Brao from Cambodia were clearly envious of Taong village for being allowed to locate themselves inside the protected area. Mr. Song of Taong village, Pathoumphone district, Champasak province, Laos, who is active in protected area management at the village level, and Mr. Kanyem, a commune council member and key elder of Kok Lak Commune, Ratanakiri province, Cambodia. They are comparing notes about protected area management between Xe Pian National Protected Area and Virachay National Park, speaking together in their native language Brao (photo by Ian G. Baird) GAPE Teams Up with Asian Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) in Co-Management Learning Network Project By Ian G. Baird GAPE has recently entered into a partnership with the Asian Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP), a Chiang Mai, Thailand based regional non-government organisation (NGO) working to support indigenous peoples. GAPE is working with AIPP on the Laos part of the Co-Management Learning Network (CMLN) project, which is a regional initiative involving protected areas and indigenous peoples from seven countries in Southeast Asia: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The project is aiming to promote the investigation and the sharing of experiences in the region regarding issues related to indigenous peoples and the co-management of protected area resources. For Laos, GAPE is acting as the focal NGO, and has entered into a partnership with the Agriculture and Forestry Division of Champasak Province and the Xe Pian National Protected Area, which is largely inside Pathoumphone district, Champasak province, where GAPE has been implementing the Remote Village Education Support Project (RVESP) for the last five years. The CMLN project is presently in its inception phase, and Khamphay Luanglath, the Director of Xe Pian NPA and Khampanh Keovilaysak attended an initial project workshop in Chiang Mai in February 2006. Then, in March 2006 Khamphay, Khampanh, Bountiem Keophouvong (from GAPE) and Amphone Vibounsak the Deputy Head of the Forestry Section at the Agriculture and Forestry Division of Champasak province, attended a second project workshop in Sabah, Malaysia in March 2006. It is expected that the project will be implemented over a 2!-year period. Through promoting the increased meaningful participation of indigenous people in protected area management, GAPE hopes to achieve its overall goal of, “Assisting people in an environmentally friendly way, protecting the environment in a people friendly way”. Meeting ethnic Jrouk Dak (Sou) villagers in Sanamxay district, Flowing through the Xe Pian National Protected Area, the life- Attapeu province to explain project aims and together select sustaining Xe Pian River (photo by Khampanh Keovilaysak) aVillage Forest Volunteer (photo by Khampanh Keovilaysak) JEFF CRAIG MEMORIAL SCHOOL By Monty Sly Jeff Craig memorial plaque carved by friend Charles André Nong Ayk village primary school built in Jeff Craig’s memory (photo M.Sly) (photo M.Sly) Below is the English language version of the dedication under the Jeff Craig Memorial School plaque: “This primary school in Nong Ayk village, Pathoumphone district, Champasak province, Lao PDR, was constructed in memory of Jeff Craig, co-founder of the Global Association for People and the Environment (GAPE). Jeff Craig planned to come to work on GAPE's Remote Village Education Project in January 2000, but sadly passed away in late December 1999. “Jeff was enthusiastic about the prospect of helping to improve the basic school facilities in remote villages, such as Nong Ayk, and to upgrade the quality of teaching taking place there. He wanted to do whatever he could to encourage young students to attend school regularly and to do their best to gain a good education in order to help themselves, their families and communities to develop their villages in environmentally sustainable ways. Ethnic Jrouk students sit outside Nong Ayk village primary school built in memory of Jeff Craig (photo M.Sly) “In Jeff Craig's memory, GAPE requests all of the young people in Nong Ayk village to come to school every day and study diligently to gain as much knowledge as possible. GAPE also encourages you to help your fellow students to learn their school lessons well, cooperate with each other, and together make a better and brighter future your village and for the people of Lao PDR.” WorldFish and GAPE Publish New Report about Mekong River Fisheries at the Khone Falls in Southern Laos By Ian G. Baird Fisheries Bioecology at the Khone Falls (Mekong River, Southern Laos), by Eric Baran, Ian G. Baird and Gregory Cans In 2001, GAPE entered into a partnership with WorldFish (Formerly ICLARM), an international organisation based in Penang, Malaysia but working internationally. They agreed to work together to analyse six years of catch-effort fisheries data collected just below the Khone Falls on the border with Cambodia between 1993 and 1999. Ian Baird and his colleagues originally collected the data during the Lao Community Fisheries and Dolphin Protection Project (1993-1997) and the Environmental Protection and Community Development in Siphandone Wetlands Project (1997-1999). Over the last five years he has collaborated with Eric Baran, and later Gregory Cans, on this project. A lot of work was required, as forty-one fishing gears are represented in the database, 20,222 fishing operations were documented, and 660,000 individual fishes and many bulk weighed fish included in138 species or taxa were caught. Overall, the database includes a biomass of 53 metric tons of fish. The result of this project has taken a long time to materialise, but a worthwhile and attractive report, with many good photographs in it, has finally been produced called, Fisheries Bioecology at the Khone Falls (Mekong River, Southern Laos), by Eric Baran, Ian G. Baird and Gregory Cans. The report includes sections dealing with various aspects of the Khone Falls fisheries and fish, including temporal use of fishing gears, interannual trends in fisheries, and relationships between Lao and Cambodian fisheries. The report also includes information about the temporal abundance of 110 fish taxa, dominant species, hydrological triggers for fish migrations, and deep-water pools as fish refuges. It is hoped that the information included in the report can help contribute to improving the management of fisheries in the Mekong River, including warning against the very serious negative impacts to fisheries and livelihoods that will arise if large dams are built on the Mekong River or large tributaries of the Mekong. Hard copies of the report are available upon request, and the document can also be downloaded from the documents section of the GAPE website (www.gapeinternational.org).