By Thai Huynh Phuong Lan
As part of planned project activities, an exchange visit took place on 8-9 September by a Vietnamese delegation to the Cambodian focal research site. It was conducted as an exercise to share lessons learned from our transboundary research project coordinated between the Faculty of Development Studies of Royal University of Phnom Penh and Faculty of Agriculture and Rural Development of Kien Giang University and boundary partners. It involved some of the main university researchers, plus commune, district, and provincial officials from Vietnam, most of whom were female and of Khmer ethnicity, as the main target group of the research. The team visited Boeung Prek Lpov (BPL) conservation area, Takeo province, which lies just over the border from An Giang, thus constituting a transboundary wetlands complex.
On the exchange visit, Royal University of Phnom Penh and the BPL Management Board shared about wetlands management, conservation aims and livelihoods of people living in the wetlands. The delegation took a boat trip to the core area of the reserve, where many species of birds reside. Currently, the area is home to more than 100,000 individual birds, depending on season, and more than 132 other land and water-dwelling animal species. Moreover, this is the migratory feeding area of the Red-crowned or Sarus Crane that seasonally moves between Cambodia and Vietnam’s Delta territory. In recent years, the number of cranes and other rare bird species has greatly reduced, with some threatened with extinction unless something changes soon. Later, the group visited and had a talk with a male village head in the conservation area. He shared with us about livelihoods in the local area, highlighting the dependence of local livelihood on agricultural activities and wetland resources.
We heard how in recent years many local villagers are no longer able rely on income from fishing, harvesting wetlands products and agricultural activities so they have to migrate to work off-farm jobs. Some even migrate to industrial zones in Vietnam, including Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces, to find alternative sources of income. Similar gender related issues in wetlands management are noted in Vietnam, where women are central in wetland related livelihood activities, but are poorly represented in management institutions for a variety of reasons. They too are frequently obliged to find work off-farm in factories and the service sector, often in poor conditions for low pay.
The exchange visit provided invaluable knowledge and experiences for the Vietnamese delegates. We were impressed with the large area, high biodiversity, and beautiful landscape of the BPL conservation area, but has yet to be well-known as an eco-tourist site compared to similar wetland areas in An Giang province. In addition, we also better appreciated the role and importance of transboundary wetland management in conservation, in agricultural production, fishing, and trade between the two countries, especially in the border area. In addition, fishing and trade practices are a valuable and worthwhile issue to learn more about its relevance to local cross-border relations. We perceived that Cambodians are more environmentally conscious and follow the regulations more strictly regarding fishing practices. On the contrary, some Vietnamese people still overexploit the common resources and fail to follow the fishery regulations, thus affecting the overall health of aquatic resources.
Generally, all participants highly valued the exchange visit in widening their knowledge about wetlands management practices and policies of our neighbours in Cambodia. The local participants from Tinh Bien district expressed a willingness to join more study tours, having initially been a bit reluctant. Even female Khmer farmers who had at first been hesitant about joining the exchange visit due to household work and responsibilities, had to be convinced by local officials several times before they agreed to participate. At the end, they were very excited and talked about what they had learned from the trip on the way back to Vietnam. For example, Ms. Neang Ry said: “Teachers, you should organize more study tours like this one, it was so useful and educational. I rarely went to the trainings organized from local government as I am busy with domestic work. But from this study tour, I see the value of trainings. So from now on when local officers invite me to participate in meetings, seminars, and trainings, I as well as other women should attend to update our knowledge, grasp the situation, express opinions and share our experiences. This should improve our knowledge and increase our understanding”.
In addition, our group were impressed with the conservation efficiency of the BPL conservation area, which with relatively few staff has still managed to protect many bird species, perhaps thanks to the environmental awareness of villagers. One district official commented: “I would like to learn more about the regulations of Cambodia on the exploitation and protection of aquatic resources; the methods of propaganda, implementation and solutions for people to comply with those regulations so that we can apply it in conservation of wild fish in our local area”. While, the exchange visit gave us a sense of some of the contrasts between Cambodia and Vietnam, but was too short to give us a detailed view about the extent to which women are integrated into wetlands and water management institutions. This questions will be for another exchange trip!