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Conservation Initiative to Protect Resources and Livelihoods in Cambodia's Tonle Sap

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (21 November 2002) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is promoting management and conservation of the natural resources of Cambodia's Tonle Sap basin, a source of livelihood for more than 1.2 million inhabitants, through a US$10.9 million equivalent ADB loan approved today.

A UN biosphere reserve, the Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, supporting one of the most productive fisheries in the world and directly providing a livelihood for about 11% of the country's population.

Those living around the lake carry out commercial and subsistence fishing, while land communities rely on low-yield paddy production and supplement this with firewood collection or illegal dry season crop production.

But the lake has wider importance in the country in terms of food security, with fish from the area accounting for up to 70% of the protein intake of Cambodia's population of more than 13 million.

Yet the rich natural resources of the Tonle Sap are a source of escalating conflict among inhabitants. This has contributed to the high poverty levels in the area, affecting 38% of the area's population, the highest proportion in the country.

"Inequality of access, population pressure, severe poverty, insufficient or nonexistent rights of tenure, and cultural and ethnic differences have placed the lake's ecosystem and the population that depends on it at risk," says Olivier Serrat, ADB Senior Project Economist.

"Cambodia could face a humanitarian and environmental disaster if the fragile ecosystem of the lake is further degraded."

The aims of the Tonle Sap Environmental Management Project are to:

• Strengthen natural resource management coordination and planning
• Organize communities for natural resource management
• Build management capacity for biodiversity conservation

The project will strengthen the self-reliance of the area's most poor and vulnerable groups, including ethnic minorities, by giving them a voice in community development and managing natural resources.

ADB will also provide a technical assistance grant of US$540,000 to improve the regulatory and management framework for inland fisheries.

"The 1.2 million inhabitants of the project area will be the direct beneficiaries, but the project is also important to much of the rest of the country, which depends on the lake's fish for protein, and to the world in general, which will benefit from conservation of globally significant biodiversity," says Mr. Serrat.

The total cost of the project is estimated at US$19.4 million. Besides the ADB loan and grant, the Global Environment Facility and the Capacity 21 program of the United Nations Development Programme will provide, respectively, US$3.9 million and US$623,000 in grants. The Government will finance the balance of US$3.9 million.

Financing about 56% of the total project cost, ADB's loan comes from its concessional Asian Development Fund, with a 32-year term, including a grace period of eight years. Interest is 1% per year during the grace period and 1.5% per annum subsequently.

The executing agency for the project, which will be carried out over five years, is the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries.

More at adb.org/media

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