Hat Yai, Thailand, 17 August 2018 – Officials and community members of Thailand’s Songkhla Lake basin and Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake pledged today to continue their friendship and joint learning in the future even after their bilateral outreach project on lake resources management ends this year.

The pledge was made at the wrap up meeting between the two sides in Hat Yai, following a four-day field visit to the three communities of the Songkhla basin by the Cambodian team.

“We’ve built such a strong friendship between the two lakes, especially between people and people, including children,” said Chatchai Ratanachai, an environmental professor who led the Thai team of the bilateral project for the last five years. “This is our last meeting, but our relationship will not end here. We’ll continue our good friendship for the years to come.”

The project began in October 2013, with an aim to improve lake resources management and livelihoods through peer-to-peer learning between the two lakes and community outreach work. Since then, the two sides made a couple of reciprocal field visits to meet their counterparts to observe what issues they face and how they address those issues. With help from the communication team of the Mekong River Commission, they also created a number of video clips on local issues and local solutions, and exchanged videos to show their counterparts’ way of life to their fellow villagers.

During the final field visit of the Cambodian team to Songkhla, the 20-member delegation visited three pilot sites of Songkhla: Thale Noi, a northern tip of the lake working on adaptation of climate change; Chong Feun, a Muslim fishing village renowned for its successful microfinancing and community development; and Tahin, a simple but thriving community with natural resources-based income generation activities.

A community leader of Thailand Songkhla Lake

A community leader of Thailand’s Songkhla Lake welcomes visitors from Cambodia working on the improvement of lake governance for the Tonle Sap Lake. ©MRC

The visitors were wowed by success stories of those community sites. In Thale Noi, they walked through an eco-village with a web of elevated footpaths that protect the village from flooding, where tourists could observe how villagers prepare fishing gears and making mats and other handicrafts from Sedge. In Chong Feun, they learnt how a community’s saving group grew from a total of 1,800 baht from 180 people in savings to more than 10 million baht in savings with over 1,000 members in 30 years, and how it helped improve community fisheries conservation. In Tahin, they saw how palm trees thrived the village with sweets and skin care products made of those trees in the last 20 years.

All these success stories started from a small trial by a community leader who tirelessly helped their village rise and share the benefits of improvement among themselves. Over the years, they received praises and supports from charities, universities and the government to expand their activities further.

“We learnt many things during the exchange visits,” said Wat Botkosal, Deputy Secretary General of the Cambodian National Mekong Committee who led the delegation. “We observed successful stories of alternative income generation, effective microfinancing, and strong fisheries conservation. We can compare these with Cambodia, and find a way to improve livelihoods of Tonle Sap lake communities.”

The Tonle Sap Authority (TSA), which coordinates the work of line ministries to improve lake governance and has led the bilateral lake project, has a plan to continue its support for community development of the pilot site in Battambang province, and information sharing through forums on water solutions between Tonle Sap and Songkhla. “We’ll not waste our new knowledge learnt from our Thai friends,” said Sin Viseth, TSA’s head of Exploitation and Conservation Control.

The lake project is part of the five transboundary initiatives among the MRC member countries under the Mekong Integrated Water Resources Management Project, which promote a holistic approach to develop and manage water resources in the Mekong basin. Funded by the World Bank, all five transboundary initiatives are slated to complete by the end of this year.

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Fish Trap Chong Feun00028

A fisherman in the Songkhla Lake is proud of his village’s fisheries conservation efforts by a microfinancing group ©MRC/Sayan Chuenudomsavad