Cooperation on dolphins urged

The Phnom Penh Post 9 April 2015 The World Wildlife Fund has called for closer cooperation between Cambodia and Laos to protect the Mekong River dolphin, in the wake of the death this week of a female thought to be one of less than 85 left in the river. With a population in the thousands as recently as the 1960s, numbers of the Mekong River dolphin, also known as the Irrawaddy dolphin, Read More…

Canada and Russia beat tropical countries to top global deforestation…

Mashable 9 April 2015 Not very long ago, tropical countries like Indonesia and Brazil were cast as the main villains of global forest conservation efforts. These countries have been chopping down huge swaths of rainforests to make way for agriculture and palm oil plantations, among other uses. By and large, they still are — but compared to other countries, there may be sufficient Read More…

Mekong River dolphin death reduces Lao population to five

WWF 7 April 2015 The discovery of a deceased female Irrawaddy river dolphin on Cheutal Touch Island, Cambodia – close to the border with Laos – is yet another reminder of the plight of this critically endangered cetacean in the Mekong River, WWF said on Tuesday. With just five animals remaining in Laos, WWF urged Laos and Cambodia to work together on common solutions to save one of the Read More…

Salmon as a reflection of history and conservation

The Timaru Herald 4 April 2015 Sea Winter Salmon: Chronicles of the St John River is about a great salmon river on the lower North Shore of Quebec, and its most important visitor, the illustrious Atlantic salmon. Very few people have the opportunity or dedication to observe their favourite fish species over a long period of time but Mari Hill Harpur has had a lifelong interest in Atlantic Read More…

Change on the Mighty Mekong

The Diplomat 1 April 2015 Hunger for affordable energy is threatening traditional livelihoods and a unique biodiversity. Just after climbing the muddy, five-meter-high banks of the Mekong river near Yuen Sean, a reclusive village in northern Cambodia, a plain, wooden hut appears, its shape and size similar to the dozens of modest homes of the poor fishing families who live here. Inside Read More…

Vietnam rice boom heaping pressure on farmers, environment

Phys.org 29 March 2015 Rice farmer Nguyen Hien Thien is so busy growing his crops that he has never even visited Can Tho, a town only a few miles from his farm in the southern Mekong Delta. "When I was a child, we grew one crop of rice per year—now it's three. It's a lot of work," 60-year-old Thien, who has been farming since he was a child, told AFP on the edge of his small paddy Read More…

Delta, Central Highlands suffer drought and saltwater tides

VietNamNet Bridge 27 March 2015 Severe drought and the resultant intrusion of seawater tides deep into the Mekong Delta are badly affecting the daily life of people there. According to the Southern Hydrometeorology Station, saltwater has entered up to 60km in some places — with the highest salinity levels recorded in the provinces of Kien Giang, An Giang and Soc Trang — despite the Read More…

Electrofishing jolts fish stocks across Viet Nam

VietNamNet Bridge 26 March 2015 Unnatural and harmful fishing methods are depleting fish stocks in unsustainable ways across the country, but localities lack the means to stop them, a Tin Tuc report says. It cites local authorities as saying they do not have sufficient law enforcement teams to stop practices like electrofishing and the use of nets with smaller holes than Read More…

Rice Can Help Save Salmon If Farms Are Allowed to Flood

Smithsonian.com 23 March 2015 Jacob Katz stands atop a long, narrow wall of rock and gravel, gazing east over an expanse of off-season rice fields a few miles west of Sacramento. The sky is winter gray and the levee clay is damp and sticky after a brief morning shower. "When some people look out here, they see a field of mud,” says Katz, a fishery biologist with the conservation group Read More…

Big fish to fry: Endangered Mekong giant barb ends up in Saigon…

Thanh Nien News 20 March 2015 An extremely rare giant barb weighing 135 kilograms have been transported from Cambodia and sold to a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, local media reported. The fish, which is 1.8 meters long and has a circumference of 1.7 meters, was caught by a Cambodian fisherman. Traders in An Giang Province learnt about the news, traveled to Cambodia to buy the fish Read More…