In Cambodia, planting trees can save the fish

In Cambodia, planting trees can save the fish

By Alexandra Kirkman

Source: mastercard

4/21/2022

Credit: Tangkor Dong/Conservation International

For centuries, thousands of Cambodian families have lived and worked in floating villages on Tonle Sap — the largest freshwater lake in southeast Asia. Generations of men and women there spend their days gliding through the muddy waters to check their fishing nets. The country depends on their hard work: The 500,000 tons of fish they yield in a typical year provide more than two-thirds of the protein in Cambodians’ diet.

But some of those nets have been increasingly empty lately.

The combined effects of deforestation, climate change, upstream hydropower dams and overfishing have dramatically reduced the region’s fish populations over the past few years. And over the past couple of decades, fires and agricultural clearing have decimated large swaths of Tonle Sap’s once-lush array of lakeshore trees, which support all kinds of aquatic life.