Cambodia's Dwindling Fish Stocks Put Spotlight on Changing Rivers

PHNOM PENH — The Mekong typically swells in the rainy season where it converges with the Tonle Sap River, causing an unusual reversed flow into the Tonle Sap Lake, filling it up and providing bountiful fish stocks.

But in recent years, the flows to Southeast Asia’s largest lake have at times been delayed, a factor blamed on drought and hydropower dams upstream on the Mekong.

“There are no big fish anymore,” said Cambodian fisherman Tin Yusos, 57. In the past, he could get a haul of about 30 kilogram of fish a day. Now he often catches just over one kilogram, worth about 15,000 riel ($3.69).

Experts blame hydropower projects, sand mining, deforestation, wetland conversion and climate change for dramatic drops in water levels in the region’s rivers, severely disrupting fishing and threatening food supplies for millions.

Whether or not China’s 11 dams are harming downstream countries dependent on the 4,350 km river has become a geopolitical issue, with the United States urging Lower Mekong nations like Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia to demand answers.

Ly Safi, 32, another Cambodian fisherman, said that this year’s catch had been his worst and he felt trapped in a livelihood with little future.

“Some fishermen could save up some money and have left to do businesses on land, but for us we can’t.”