Marine Protection News Cambodia

The Koh Rong Samloem Fisheries Community Patrols have been very busy during the months of April and May, due to the start of rainy season, the sea conditions begin to force outside fishing vessels to fish closer inshore. No less than four large trawling boats were caught operating within the community and inshore areas close to the islands of Koh Rong Samloem and Koh Koun on May 27th: all four vessels were escorted back to the community and had to sign an official statement of understanding that there activities were in breach of both fisheries law and community fisheries bylaws. As the trawling vessels are large boats with many crew members the community used three patrol vessels and all patrol group members to encircle the trawlers and shepherd them to the village.

Over the past two months two Vietnamese boats were also caught fishing illegally along the shore of Koh Koun within the no fishing zone, one using poison, large spears and torches the other using supplied air, suspected poison and collecting everything they came across including endangered giant clams, commercial tops and other rare marine life.

During the month of may three local tourist dive vessels were also caught anchoring on the reefs around Koh Koun, each captain has now signed a statement informing them that anchoring on and damaging coral reefs is illegal by Cambodian fisheries law. This is the first time the community has formally caught the dive operators vessels, after many years of anchoring on the coral reefs the damage caused in certain areas of the reef is very clear, hopefully the company owners will now take more care to stop their dive boats destroying the coral reefs that they take their divers to see.

On the second of June the community had to approach a large sand dredging vessel that decided to start operating within the community area and within 300m of Koh Rong's shoreline. As the community patrol approached the vessel it ceased its dredging operations and around 30 minutes later removed its dredging pipes from the sensitive habitats it had been destroying and headed back to Sihanoukville.

Many other smaller infractions also occurred over the past two months but were easily solved in a friendly and informative way each fishing vessel was verbally informed by the Community patrol group of the Cambodian Fisheries Law relating to their activity and then shown a copy of the offical map of the Fisheries Community boundaries and conservation areas.  

It is now becoming very clear that without the Koh Rong Samloem fisheries community patrols the marine biodiversity around the Island of Koh Rong Samloem and Koh Koun would have suffered greatly over the past 3 years, our marine research surveys and community catch monitoring are beginning to show increases in both biodiversity and small scale commercial catches. Our research divers and volunteers are also starting to see an increase in the visibility underwater and a decrease in the amount of sedimentation smothering the reefs, simple observation points to this being down to the decrease in trawling activities within the inshore areas.

Marine Conservation Cambodia together with Koh Rong Samloem Community fisheries, the Cambodian Fisheries Conservation and Community Departments, RFLP/UN FAO, Sihanoukville Fisheries Inspectorate, Marine Police and Royal Cambodian Navy have been actively changing the tide of destruction around the Islands of Koh Rong Samloem, Koh Koun and Koh Rong. A very big thank you to all those involved, it is again becoming a pleasure to dive around the islands, rather than being a depressing experience of wasteful destruction that it had become.