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Vincent Macisaac

UN, Cambodia in joint project to protect a national treasure and tackle poverty

A team of UN experts is arriving in northeastern Cambodia this month to help craft a tourism development plan to save the last of the Mekong River's dolphins by turning a 200km stretch of the river into a leading eco-tourism destination.

'The Mekong River dolphin is a treasure we must protect. It is the second tourism icon of Cambodia, after Angkor Wat,' said Thok Sokhum, the Cambodian tourism official overseeing the development of what will become the Mekong Discovery Trail.

Between 80 and 100 of the dolphins are managing to survive  in nine deep pools between the scenic town of Kratie and Cambodia's border with Laos, according to the WWF.

Conservationists have been warning for several years that the dolphins' demise is imminent. The WWF says improving villagers' livelihoods is key to ensuring their survival.

The team from the UN World Tourism Organisation  will pinpoint areas for infrastructure development and identify activities that will provide new sources of income for fishing villages in a region where most residents survive on less than US 50 cents a day.

These villages have seen their incomes plunge even further as patrols of River Guards, set up to protect the dolphins, began cracking down on gill-net fishing, strictly enforcing fishing zones and targeting  illegal methods such as dynamite, cyanide and electric-shock fishing.

Three fishermen were jailed  for using electrified cables to stun fish so they could scoop them up when they floated to the surface, said Vie Lo, the river guard who arrested them.

Although such sentences have deterred many illegal fishermen, others have been studying the activities of the River Guards in order to outwit them, Vie Lo said.

Villagers say that with small nets and traps they can still catch enough small fish to feed their families, but not enough to sell.

Some, like Lee Srimon in Kampi village, have switched from fishing to carving wooden dolphins and other trinkets to sell to tourists, but this supports only about 10 families in one of several dozen villages in the area.

Lee Srimon said she was lucky to sell three or four carvings a week, at US$4 to US$5 apiece. More tourists would mean higher sales.

Jay Blackeney, the UN consultant in charge of the first phase of the 18-month project,  said  most local villagers  had never heard of eco-tourism. Surveys found that they wanted improved hygiene, better education for their children and roads.

These needs could be met by developing infrastructure for tourists;  the trick was to convince villagers of this, Mr Blackeney said.

The project, which is being funded by the Cambodian government, the UN and the Dutch development agency SNV, has two phases. The first is an urban renewal plan for the provincial capital, Kratie, that aims to turn the riverside town into a gateway to the country's spectacular but rarely visited northeast.

The town is already evolving from a pit stop on the backpacker trail through Indochina into a getaway destination for residents of Phnom Penh, local tourism operators say. Besides its proximity to the dolphin pools, it offers what many describe as the most dramatic sunsets over the Mekong River, as well as finely preserved French colonial architecture.

Once the Kratie facelift is finalised, the Mekong Discovery Trail will be charted. This will include cycling paths and other eco-friendly activities that planners say will primarily benefit local communities and small-scale businesses, as well as the dolphins.

The project is also part of Cambodia's effort to diversify a tourism industry that relies primarily on Siem Reap, the town next to Angkor Wat, which draws about two-thirds of the country's foreign tourists.

The number of international tourists has been rising by about 20 per cent a year over the past several years, and is on track to surpass 2 million this year, according to the tourism ministry.

Its long-term goal is to raise the profile of the beach resort of Sihanoukville and promote a third destination in the northeast that will offer nature and adventure tourism.

Tourism official Thok Sokhum said the Mekong Discovery Trail was the first in-depth, collaborative project between Cambodia's tourism ministry and the UN's tourism body and signalled a shift towards long-term planning as well as the emergence of poverty alleviation as a tourism goal.

Staying afloat

The Mekong or Irawaddy dolphin is one of only five dolphin species that live solely in freshwater: the others are the Ganges, Indus, Amazon and Yangtze River dolphins

Mekong dolphins have the unexplained habit of squirting streams of water from their mouths. Scientists believe this may be used to herd fish.

They live for at least 26 years and reach a maximum size of 2.75 metres.

In addition to the usual threats posed by man, many Mekong dolphins died during the Vietnam war and the Cambodian regime of Pol Pot, when soldiers used them for target practice.

SOURCE: WWW.MEKONGDOLPHIN.ORG



Tourism offers hope for  Mekong's rare dolphins