Cambodian Journal of Natural History Alien plants invading protected areas Pond rotifers in the Mekong Basin The real value of medicinal plants Horseshoe bats July 2011 Vol 2011 No. 1 Cambodian Journal of Natural History Editors Email: [email protected] • Dr Jenny C. Daltry, Senior Conservation Biologist, Fauna & Flora International. • Dr Neil M. Furey, Head of Academic Development, Fauna & Flora International: Cambodia Programme. • Hang Chanthon, Former Vice-Rector, Royal University of Phnom Penh. • Dr Carl Traeholt, Chief Lecturer in Biodiversity Conservation, Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, Royal University of Phnom Penh. International Editorial Board • Dr Stephen J. Browne, Fauna & Flora International, • Dr Sovanmoly Hul, Muséum National d’Histoire Singapore. Naturelle, Paris, France. • Dr Martin Fisher, Editor of Oryx – The International • Dr Andy L. Maxwell, World Wide Fund for Nature, Journal of Conservation, Cambridge, U.K. Cambodia. • Dr L. Lee Grismer, La Sierra University, California, • Dr Jörg Menzel, University of Bonn, Germany. USA. • Dr Brad Pett itt , Murdoch University, Australia. • Dr Knud E. Heller, Nykøbing Falster Zoo, Denmark. • Dr Campbell O. Webb, Harvard University Herbaria, USA. Other peer reviewers for this volume • Michael R. Appleton, St Antonin Noble-Val, France. • Dr Alan Ong Han Kiat, Universiti Tunku Abdul • David Ashwell, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Rahman, Malaysia. • Dr Seokwan Cheong, Chungbuk National University, • Dirk Lamberts, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Cheongju Chungbuk, South Korea. • Dr Sébastien Puechmaille, University College Dublin, • Dr Patrick David, Muséum National d’Histoire Ireland. Naturelle (MNHN), Paris, France. • Dr Benjamin M. Rawson, Conservation International, • Dr Claudio O. Delang, The Chinese University of Hong Cambodia. Kong, China. • Dr David L. Roberts, University of Kent, Canterbury, • Khou Eanghourt, Ministry of Environment, Cambodia. U.K. • Dr Charles M. Francis, National Wildlife Research • André Schuiteman. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Centre, Canadian Wildlife Service, Ott awa, Canada. Richmond, U.K. • Fredéric Goes, Cambodia Bird News, France. • Dr Hendrik H. Segers, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium. • Dr Alice Hughes, Bristol University, U.K. • Dr Marpha Telapova, MNHN, Paris, France. • Ronald W. Jones, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. • Naomi Walston, Grassroot Soccer, New York, USA. • Dr Marko Keskinen, Aalto University, Finland. • Dr Wolfgang Wüster, Bangor University, U.K. The Cambodian Journal of Natural History is a free journal published by the Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, Royal University of Phnom Penh. The Centre for Biodiversity Conservation is a non-profi t making unit dedicated to training Cambodian biologists and to the study and conservation of Cambodian biodiversity. Cover photo: A male freshwater needlefi sh or ‘trey phtong’ Xenentodon canciloides from the Pramaoy River, Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary (© Jeremy Holden/ Fauna & Flora International). The management of fi sheries is explored in this issue’s Editorial. Editorial 1 Editorial - A new point of view for Cambodian aquatic natural resources Ronald W. Jones* Aquatic Ecologist, 48e Street 288, BKK 1, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Email [email protected] A relatively small number of people in Cambodia see fi sh and cultural factors of how local communities view their as income only. Fish as an extractive resource, caught and resources and the resulting impacts and declines (Bush & traded in the market for cash, disproportionately benefi t Hirsch, 2008). This is essentially how we currently look at only a minority of Cambodia’s wealthy elite. To most all fi sheries - as extractive resources for those who catch Cambodians fi sh are food and income. Fish are also culture. and possess them. Even aft er they are caught, fi sh contin- Fish, combined with rice and vegetables, provide essen- ue to move from the South to the North, from developing tial nutrition, and ultimately survival for Cambodia’s rural to developed countries, from rural to urban areas, and poor (McKenney & Prom, 2002). from the poor to the rich. Transboundary trade patt erns show the Mekong region is no exception. Yet conventional fi sheries management in Cambodia focuses on the state’s commitment to improving com- The alternative point of view is to see fi sh and fi sheries mercial catch production. Fish are treated as an impor- as part of the broader natural history of Cambodia, and tant tradable national commodity and a target for more aquatic resources as intimately connected to people and commercialisation, in spite of chronically poor monitor- place. Aquatic resource systems co-evolved with people, ing and statistical analysis in Cambodia’s freshwater, intricately connected in time and space, and responding brackish and marine fi sheries (but see Allebone-Webb & to changes in Mekong hydrology and geomorphology, Clements, 2010, as a recent exception). This narrow focus, resulting in high biodiversity and fi sh yields. coupled with a lack of data, is especially problematic at Perhaps we now need to see fi sh divorced from their Community Fisheries (CFi) levels. Currently, there are no primary role of contributor to Gross Domestic Product readily available data on productivity or catches to empir- (GDP) and export earnings. The true value of Cambodian ically assess the contribution, if any, that the CFi manage- fi sheries to its peoples has never been adequately calcu- ment system makes to fi sh conservation or improving the lated in any national accounting process (Hap & Bhat- lives of Cambodian fi shers. Cambodia is not alone, as this tarai, 2009). It is already acknowledged that the Food & is true of most small-scale fi sheries in the Global South Agriculture Organization and offi cial catch data grossly (Béné et al., 2006). Their biodiversity, productivity and underestimate the actual catch of fi sh, let alone account for socioeconomic importance is downplayed or ignored in the small-scale, family-level contributions that common, national resource accounting (Degen et al., 2000). rural local fi sheries make to overall population health, A new framing or imaging of Cambodian fi sheries wellbeing and food security (Béné et al., 2010). What is governance is required (Jentoft et al., 2010). A new view- the true value of fi sheries in preventing mass rural food point is needed to bett er understand how the world’s insecurity in Cambodia? fourth largest freshwater fi shery (Van Zalinge et al., A new fi sheries paradigm for Cambodian CFis 2001), a dynamic and historical social-ecological system, requires putt ing the conservation of fi sh and their eco- fi ts into local, regional and global aquatic value chains. system support services fi rst (Berkes, 2010). At the same We need to look at Cambodian and the broader Mekong time CFis should develop measures of local livelihoods fi sheries as part of an increasingly globalized fi sh com- governance. The Community Fisheries Law must be modity market, with many infl uences fundamentally reformed or made fl exible enough to account for the originating from outside the region and impacting across diversity of local, community-based innovations in multiple and diff erent scales on harvesting levels and resource governance, which may come to oversee the trade (Taylor et al., 2007). Conventional quantitative conservation and management within CFis. The Fishery assessments do not capture the nuanced social-ecological * Ronald Jones was Technical Advisor to the Fisheries Action Coalition Team (FACT) in Cambodia from August 2009 to December 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not refl ect those of FACT or coalition partners. Cambodian Journal of Natural History 2011 (1) 1-3 © Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, Phnom Penh 2 Editorial Law is a commitment to decentralisation and deconcen- researchers and conservationists need to increase their tration, as the legal framework of fi sheries co-manage- presence in the political discourse of Cambodian fi sher- ment. The Community Fisheries Law is now encoded in ies co-management. Who is speaking for the fi sh in these the Fisheries Administration 10-year Strategic Planning formal and oft en informal negotiations? Fisheries conser- Framework (FiA, 2010). vation and sustainable livelihoods need not be incompat- ible. But I fear this discussion may be too late, not just here in Cambodia, but in other heavily stressed commercial- The Mekong Basin, its people, livelihoods and cul- subsistence freshwater systems in the Global South. tures are changing under a number of multiple and cross Without the willingness and commitment of manpower scale drivers. Mekong fi sheries will also change, and the and other resources to develop and enforce eff ective com- trajectories do not look good. Mekong fi sheries must munity-based fi sheries legislation - both in freshwater no longer be taken for granted as a historical birthright, and coastal areas - we can only hope that our piecemeal always there and always providing (Friend et al., 2009). approaches to management and advocacy will delay the We have hopefully learned about the results of such massive collapses that are coming. These collapses will hubris and mismanagement from the massive collapse of happen, even without the impacts from Mekong main- the Northern cod Gadus morhua stocks off Newfoundland, stream dams (Barlow et al., 2008). Canada, in the 1990s. Stocks that supplied vast amounts of fi sh for over 300 years were gone in 30! International So I put this question forward. Under the many fi sheries governance organizations failed to prevent the current fi sheries governance environments found in the collapse of these stocks. It required the governments and Global South, can any freshwater capture fi shery sustainably scientists to listen and pay att ention to fi shers whose contribute to GDP growth? The new paradigm suggests lives depended on sustaining the fi sh. This example took that continued reliance on small-scale fi sheries to con- place in a wealthy, informed, well-connected, developed tribute to exports is unrealistic under current manage- country with litt le or none of the socioeconomic prob- ment practices.