Cambodia creates safe zones for Mekong dolphins

Mekong dolphin

The newly created zone 'will serve the eco-tourism sector and sustainably preserve dolphins' by banning fishing cages and floating houses.

Mon, Aug 27 2012

By Agence France-Presse

PHNOM PENH — The Cambodian government on Aug. 24 said it will limit fishing in a zone in the Mekong River to protect critically endangered freshwater dolphins.

The Irrawaddy dolphin conservation area will cover a 180-kilometer-long (110 miles) stretch of river from eastern Kratie province to the border with Laos, the government said after the measure was approved in the weekly cabinet meeting.

Fishing will still be allowed inside the zone but the use of floating houses, fish cages and gill nets will be banned as they risk endangering the dolphins.

Cambodia reports new death of Mekong River dolphin

July 30, 2010
Xinhua

A Mekong river dolphin was found dead in Kratie province in Cambodian's north eastern part, a government official said Friday.

Touch Seang Tana, chairman of Cambodia's Commission for Conversation and Development of the Mekong River Dolphins Eco- tourism Zone, said the river dolphin believed at age of 27 was found dead on Thursday as it was netted in a laying fishing net in the stream.

He said the dolphin, male, was already old and it had swum out of the protected zone looking for foods and accidently spotted in the fishing net.

He said it weighed 156 kilograms with 2.3 meters long.

Touch Seang Tana estimated dolphins numbered at about 150 to 170 today are living in Cambodia's two provinces of Stung Treng and Kratie, while there were only about 120 in 2000.

Last year, International conservation watchdog, known as WWF issued a report saying and warning that pollution in the Mekong River has pushed the local population of Irrawaddy dolphins to the brink of extinction.

The Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin has been listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species since 2004.

Cambodia, "environmentally sustainable" tourism to save Mekong dolphin

09/06/2008
AsiaNews.it
CAMBODIA

Overfishing, war, and pollution have decimated the dolphins, and only a few dozen of them are left. Environmentalists have begun a project aimed at contributing to the development of the villages and to saving the dolphins, but their numbers continue to diminish.

Phnom Penh (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Saving the few dozen freshwater dolphins still remaining in the Mekong River, and helping the local population by guaranteeing them a source of livelihood: this is the aim of the "ecotourism" project begun in the border area between Laos and Cambodia by the Cambodia Rural Development Team (CRDT), which has the twofold objective of protecting wildlife and providing an alternative source of income for the inhabitants of the villages.

For centuries, the waters of the Mekong River - which crosses China, Laos, and Cambodia, before reaching the ocean in Vietnam - were the uncontested habitat of thousands of freshwater dolphins. The Sino-Indian War and the increase of industrialization, together with high pollution levels, have decimated the species, only a few dozen of which survive; 71, according to the latest count provided by the World Wildlife Fund.

The village of Sambor, in the north of Cambodia, is one of the places selected by the CRDT as a model of environmentally sustainable development: tourists are given the opportunity to live in contact with the local population, to help the inhabitants protect the natural habitat of the dolphins, and to teach a little English to the children. The most frequently requested activities include well digging, sewer construction, and work in the fields.

The experiment promoted by the activists is intended to save the dolphins from extinction by radically changing the habits of the inhabitants of the village, who for decades have used aggressive fishing methods like explosives and high-capacity nets. Now the freshwater dolphins are seen as a resource to be "exploited" in order to attract foreign capital and tourism; the visitors pay 60 US dollars for three days in contact with nature, and the money is used to support the local population. In a country in which half the population lives on a dollar a day, the inhabitants of the village earn five dollars a day by providing food (two dollars) and lodging (three dollars) for the visitors.

But recent studies have demonstrated that if the benefit for individuals is beyond question, the same cannot be said for the dolphins: in spite of a small increase in their numbers in the initial phase of the project, it is not yet clear whether this is truly effective for preserving the species. Scientists affirm that a new and not yet identified disease is spreading rapidly, killing the offspring. Researchers fear that the new virus - caused by pollution in the water, infested with chemical agents and the runoff from gold mining projects - could soon lead to the total extinction of the dolphins.

Fight to Save Cambodian Dolphin Continues

By Rory Byrne, VOA
Kratie,Cambodia
01 September 2008

Click here to listen to Rory Byrne report

Once upon a time, the Mekong River from Laos to Vietnam was teaming with thousands of freshwater dolphins, before more than thirty years of warfare and over-fishing nearly killed them off. But a recent study by the World Wildlife Fund found just 71 left, living in a short stretch of river from northern Cambodia to southern Laos. An effort to protect the endangered species by way of an eco-tourism project was begun several years ago, but as Rory Byrne reports for VOA from Kratie, Cambodia, is it too little, too late?

This small boat chugging up the Mekong River in Cambodia represents one of the last hopes for saving the endangered Mekong Irrawaddy Dolphin. The boat is carrying so-called "voluntourists" to the isolated fishing village of Sambor in northern Cambodia, which is close to an important breeding ground for some of the last remaining Mekong freshwater dolphins.

The foreign tourists will live and work in the impoverished village on the banks of the river in an effort to help protect the dolphin's natural habitat, while at the same time helping to improve the lives of some of the world's poorest people.

Or Channy, Executive Director of the Cambodia Rural Development Team

Or Channy is Executive Director of the Cambodia Rural Development Team (CRDT), in Kratie, Cambodia.

"We are developing agriculture in the area, improving the health care system and digging wells and toilets. But most importantly we are trying to save the dolphins by providing local fishermen with an alternative way to earn a living through tourism," he said.

Tourists pay about $60 for their three day stay in the village most of which goes directly into the pockets of local people.

In a country where almost almost half the people earn about a dollar a day, villagers here can earn $3 per tourist per night for sleeps overs, plus $2 for every meal.

In return for earning an income from tourism, the villagers work to conserve the Irrawaddy dolphin's natural habitat. They have constructed fish farms in the village to help conserve the dolphin's dwindling food supply. Fishing with nets and explosives in the river has been banned while at the same time villagers are being encouraged to view the dolphins as an important natural asset that can help attract growing numbers of tourists.

Sok Sim, local historian

In the past, people cared little for the mammals, says local historian Sok Sim: "In the early 1970's there was a lot of bombing in this area and many dolphins were killed. Others died later at the hands of the local people who considered them to be useless fish because they could not eat them. They just shot them for fun."

While staying in the village, the tourists help to develop the local economy by working on development projects such as digging toilets or planting rice to help alleviate the villager's over-reliance on fishing.

Srey Bern, the President of the local Development Committee

When the sun gets too hot for outdoor work, tourists can teach the local children some words of English. Local people say they are delighted with the scheme. Srey Bern is the President of the local Development Committee:

"There are a lot of benefits to having foreigners stay in our village. In the first place we can learn a lot from them - they give us new ideas and we can learn about their culture. The extra money helps a lot but for me it is not the most important thing," he said.

Grace Byrnes, a tourist from Melbourne Australia, says the experience is invaluable for everyone.

Australian tourist Grace Byrnes says 'It's a really great experience'

"It's a really great experience and something that you're not going to do everyday. You can see that any type of help that you offer is really appreciated and it's something that I'd definitely recommend for anyone who wants to come over to Cambodia," said Byrnes.

Despite an initial spike in dolphin numbers reported in the months after the scheme was introduced, it remains unclear whether it will have any lasting impact in saving the remaining dolphins.

Scientists say a deadly new mystery disease seems to be killing off the dolphin's babies which is threatening to undo much of the projects good work.

There are real fears that the disease, which some blame on chemicals from gold-mining in the area, could soon wipe out the species completely.

But whether the dolphins can be saved or not, the conservation project is at least helping to improve the lives of some of the world's poorest people while at the same time offering tourists, and local people, a glimpse at completely different way of life.

Battle to save Cambodian dolphin

Sun Mao has been trying to stop the dolphin decline
[The] dream recedes as each dead dolphin washes up on the banks of the Mekong

Wednesday, 9 July 2008
By Guy Delauney
BBC News, Kratie

Sun Mao leans forward in the boat, shades his eyes with his hand, and squints across the wide expanse of the Mekong River where it twists through the town of Kratie.

He is looking for one of the world's rarest mammals - the Mekong Irrawaddy dolphin.

Older people in this part of northern Cambodia talk of how they used to take the dolphins for granted.

Little effort was needed to see them in their dozens. Now, scientists say, there are less than 100 remaining.

National heritage

With a practised eye, Sun Mao spots a group of five dolphins, collectively known as a pod.

They briefly break the surface as they come up for air - grey-brown, bullet-headed and exhaling with an old man's rasp.

It is an awe-inspiring sight, but nothing new to Sun Mao.

As part of a local organisation, the Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT), he has put years of work into preserving the dwindling population.

For him it is an issue of national heritage.

"This is the last place for these dolphins in the world," he says over the clatter of the boat's outboard engine.

"We have to conserve and keep them alive in this river for our next generation."

CRDT has tried to educate the local human population about what they can do.

A government-enforced ban on the use of gill nets - nets set vertically in the water so that fish swim into them and are entangled in the mesh - has cut down the number of dolphins accidentally caught by fishermen.

Instead, CRDT has helped locals to reduce their reliance on fishing by offering alternatives such as poultry farming.

Villagers on Pdao Island, just outside Kratie, greet Sun Mao as an old friend as he clambers up the muddy riverbank.

Tourist influx

They happily show off their CRDT-sponsored chickens, water-pumps and fish ponds, and declare themselves delighted to be part of the dolphin preservation efforts.

It would be a heart-warming tale, if only the statistics were not so brutally depressing.

A scientific survey taken three years ago estimated the dolphin population at 127. The latest study by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) puts the figure at 71.

It comes as a devastating blow after all the work that local and international organisations have put in.

As well as banning the use of gill nets, the government has established a network of river guards to patrol the dolphin habitats.

While CRDT has been working with the local human population, WWF scientists have been looking into ways of protecting the dolphins.

Everyone was hoping that the dolphin population would at least stabilise, if not flourish.

Payback would come in the form of an influx of tourists to see the pods at play and bring much-needed revenue to the local economy.

Contaminants

That dream recedes as each dead dolphin washes up on the banks of the Mekong.

Most worryingly, most of the recent casualties have been calves. Without the babies, there is no future for the species.

"There are theories that the immune systems of the dolphins have been compromised by stress," says Richard Zanre, dolphin programme manager for WWF.

"The river environment has been encroached upon by new developments. There is also the problem of contaminants in the river."

The answers need to be found quickly. As it stands, WWF still classifies the remaining population as "sustainable".

If the numbers fall much further, however, there will no longer be enough diversity for the dolphins to breed successfully.

That would spell the end for this unique species.

World's Largest Catfish Species Threatened by Dam

April 8, 2008
Stefan Lovgren at Khone Falls, Cambodia
for National Geographic News

This is the sixth story in a continuing series on the Megafishes Project. Join National Geographic News on the trail with project leader Zeb Hogan as he tracks down the world's largest freshwater fishes.

In the swift currents of the Mekong River in northern Cambodia, fishers expertly navigate their longboats past rock outcroppings and fallen logs.

But soon these wild waters may be tamed. Plans for the construction of a large hydroelectric dam just across the border, at Khone Falls in Laos, would permanently alter one of the most pristine areas in Southeast Asia.

The dam is one of several being planned on the mostly untouched Mekong River, which meanders through six countries—China, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam (see map).

The future of the Mekong was a key issue when the prime ministers of those countries met for a regional summit earlier this week in the Laotian capital of Vientiane.

The Don Sahong dam at Khone Falls, one of five dams that Laos is planning along the Mekong, will block the deepest channel on the section of the river that migratory fish pass through when the water level is at its lowest, conservationists say.

One of those migratory fish is the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish, which holds the record as the largest freshwater fish ever caught. The record catch, made in northern Thailand in 2005, tipped the scales at 646 pounds (293 kilograms).

"An impassable dam at the falls could cause the extinction of the Mekong giant catfish species," said Zeb Hogan, a fisheries biologist at the University of Nevada in Reno.

Hogan, who visited the Khone Falls area last week, heads the Megafishes Project, a three-year effort to document the 20-plus species of freshwater fish that measure at least 6.5 feet (2 meters) in length or 220 pounds (100 kilograms) in weight.

(The Megafishes Project is partly funded by the National Geographic Society, which operates National Geographic News.)

Spawning Ground

Fishers at Khone Falls had long known that the giant catfish traveled through their area.

But in 2007 Thai photographer Suthep Kritsanavarin for the first time photographed a giant catfish caught at Khone Falls.

Giant catfish were once plentiful throughout the Mekong River basin, but in the last century the population has declined 95 to 99 percent, according to Hogan.

The massive fish is not targeted by fishers, but it is sometimes caught as bycatch. In Cambodia, where the largest population of giant catfish is found, eight of the giant fish were caught last year.

Although fishing is the biggest immediate threat to the giant catfish in the Mekong, dams and habitat fragmentation could disrupt the animal's ability to reproduce, Hogan said.

"There is only one known spawning ground for Mekong giant catfish, and that spawning ground is in northern Thailand," he said.

"Until we know better, we have to assume that fish from Cambodia may migrate to Thailand to spawn."

The construction of the Don Sahong dam, which is slated for completion in 2010, would make that migration impossible, Hogan said.

Untouched

Advocates of the dams point to the enormous hydropower potential that the Mekong offers to an energy-hungry region. With oil prices at record levels, the projects have taken on added urgency, they say.

So far the Mekong runs almost uninterrupted; only China has dammed the river at two locations in Yunnan Province.

One of the dams that China is now building will be second in size only to the Yangtze River's Three Gorges Dam.

"China, as an upstream country, will never do anything that will harm the interests of downstream countries," He Yafei, China's assistant foreign minister, told reporters before last week's regional summit.

But officials in Vietnam, where the Mekong empties into the South China Sea, say water extraction for farm irrigation upstream has already caused ocean salt water to move inland, destroying rice fields.

Conservationists likewise warn that the new dams could harm fish stocks that millions of people throughout the Mekong depend on.

"Fisheries resources are essential to the population of the Mekong Basin," said Eric Baran of the nonprofit World Fish Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

"In Cambodia, for instance, the fish catch contributes 65 to 75 percent of the animal protein of households."

More than a thousand fish species live in the Mekong River system, a biodiversity second only to the Amazon in South America, Baran said.

In a report last year, the World Fish Center warned that the economic benefits of the U.S. $300-million Don Sahong dam may be outweighed by losses from local fisheries, whose production has been estimated at over U.S. $2 billion a year.

Deep Channel

At Khone Falls the Mekong River drops up to 100 feet (30 meters) from the Khorat plateau to the Mekong plain, forming a complex network of narrow channels, called hoo in Lao.

Scientists have found that the area supports at least 201 fish species, including several endemic or endangered species.

The area is also home to one of the few remaining concentrations of freshwater dolphins in the Mekong.

The dam will block Hoo Sahong, the deepest channel and the only one that migratory fish can pass through at the peak of the dry season, in April and May, when the Mekong is at its lowest.

Nongovernmental organizations in Cambodia called on their government this month to ask Laos for a construction moratorium on the Don Sahong dam to allow for more environmental assessments.

Hogan admits that dams provide a number of benefits, including flood control, water for irrigation, and electricity.

"But it is also important to consider the costs," he said, "especially in an area where a large part of the population is dependent on fish for food."

"From a migratory fish's perspective, there is nothing worse than a dam."

Baby dolphin's health causes concern in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Though infant mortality is on the decline among Cambodia's endangered Mekong Irrawaddy dolphin population, the overall health of the baby dolphins is of concern, national media on Friday quoted expert as saying.

Two of the nine baby dolphins born in 2007 died - one in January and another last week, said Touch Seang Tana, head of the governmental Commission of Mekong Dolphin Conservation.

In 2006, 14 babies were born, six of which died, he said, adding that these numbers were encouraging given the fact that the previous years saw an average of 15 babies die.

"Before there were a lot of deaths. Now there is only two," he was quoted by English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodian Daily as saying.

The improvements are attributed to education campaigns over the last couple of years warning villagers not to use gill nets and encouraging them to find work in tourism instead of fishing.

However, the surviving baby dolphins are underweight and look unhealthy, he said, adding that the baby dolphin dying in January weighed only 3.8 kg and the baby found last week tangled in a fishing net 4 kg, some one kg shy of the normal weight.

"The remaining babies are small," he said, adding that the baby dolphin’s failing health is partly due to a shortage in the fish their mothers eat, which is something he attributed to global warming and shifting temperatures.

World Wildlife Fund' Cambodia Country Director Teak Seng said that global warming may be a threat to the dolphins, but there is no conclusive evidence to support the theory.

"We don't have any scientific evidence that supports this casual relationship, therefore further research needs to be conducted," he said.

"While dolphins are very sensitive to changes in their environment, such as water temperature and quality, other factors may be more influential such as diseases and water pollution," he added.

According to the Commission of Mekong Dolphin Conservation, there are currently 140 to 150 dolphins in Cambodia, over some 90 in 2006.

The Cambodian government has adopted a series of measures to protect the animal, such as no use of fishing net in its inhabiting area, and encouragement of local people to salvage those struggling in nets.

Renewed fears for rare Mekong dolphin in Cambodia

An Irrawaddy dolphin, also known as the Mekong dolphin, swims in the river at Kampi village in Kratie province, 230 km (143 miles) northeast of Cambodia, March 25, 2007. (Chor Sokunthea/Reuters)

PHNOM PENH, March 5 (Reuters) - A sharp drop in the number Mekong dolphins born in Cambodia has renewed fears for the survival of the rare mammals, wildlife experts said on Wednesday.

Only three baby dolphins, one of them dead, were found during an annual survey conducted in late November, down from six newborns in previous years, Touch Seang Tana told Reuters.

Their weight had also dropped to under 2 kg (4.4 lb) from 5 kg (11 lb) in the 1980s, the chairman of the Commission for Mekong Dolphins Conservation said.

"A group of 10 full-grown dolphins living in the upper Mekong River had no babies at all this year," he said, blaming a shortage of fish and rising water temperatures which might have affected their reproductive systems.

There are about 150 dolphins living in the upper Mekong River, up from only 90 before a 2006 ban on net fishing in the eastern provinces of Kratie and Steung Treng.

Conservationists had hoped for a surge in newborn dolphins after the ban was imposed.

"Global warming may be a possible indirect threat to the dolphin population, particularly if their fitness is reduced," said Teak Seng of the World Wildlife Fund.

"Dolphins are very sensitive to changes in their environment such as water temperature and quality. Other factors may be more influential such as diseases and water pollution," he said.

(Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Tourism to save the last 80 Mekong River Dolphins

Wildlife Extra

December 2007. The last 80 or so river dolphins in the Mekong River are at the heart of an ambitious development programme to tackle poverty and attract tens of thousands of visitors to two of the poorest provinces of Cambodia.

The Mekong River Discovery Trail Project will draw visitors to view the endangered fresh water dolphin which lives in 10 deep water natural pools in a 190-km stretch of the Mekong River, mostly between the quiet provincial capitals of Kratie and Stung Treng.

Poverty Alleviation

The main objective of the Discovery Trail is poverty alleviation. About 50% of all households in Stung Treng and 30% of those in Kratie live on less than US$1 a day. ‘The Mekong River Discovery Trail Project aims to bring about sustainable pro-poor tourism that helps develop Northeast Cambodia,’ says Dr Harsh Varma, Director of Development Assistance Department of the World Tourism Organization.

While Cambodia’s tourism arrival statistics show growth in excess of 20% a year, it is not equitably distributed, says Ms Anne-Maria Makela, Senior Tourism Advisor for SNV Netherlands Development Organisation. ‘Too much of it goes to Angkor and Siem Reap. We want to bring more communities into the tourism picture, either as employees or as suppliers to the tourism industry.’

Tourism increasing

In addition to 80,000 domestic tourists, the Cambodian government says that about 10,800 international visitors, mostly backpackers, visited Kratie in 2006, 35% up on the previous year. It estimates that 4,000 visited Stung Treng, an increase of 20%. By seeking out the dolphins, backpackers have shown the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism that there is potential.

Reduce Fishing and Gain Tourism revenue

As part of the project to attract tourists to the Mekong, villagers near the pools will be encouraged to diversify economic activity away from fishing. Local authorities believe fishing is depleting the dolphins’ food supply. Fishermen will be encouraged to take visitors to see the dolphins and sell food and drinks instead.

‘No dolphins means no tourism. No tourism means no development,’ says Dr Thong Khon, Cambodia’s Minister of Tourism. ‘Our challenge is to secure the long-term viable future of local communities and the river dolphin. Our priority is to build community awareness as well as hotels, guest houses and a boat jetty in Kratie to encourage more visitors.’

Poor Infrastructure

Access and infrastructure in Kratie and Stung Treng are problematic. There is no international standard hotel. There is no local airport. The nearest is in Phnom Penh, a five-hour road trip or a six-hour congested public boat trip away.

Nevertheless, budget travellers and a few tour groups have already ‘discovered’ Kratie, which still has some architecture and ambience from the French colonial period.

River dolphin population 'dying'

September 3, 2007
AAP

The world's river dolphin population is dying out thanks to bad environmental practices that also threaten the health of their human neighbours, an international environmental conference has been told.

The 10th annual River symposium, Australia's largest river management conference, brings around 500 delegates from 40 countries to Brisbane from Monday to discuss river health, damming practices, drought and climate change.

WWF river dolphin initiative coordinator Anna Forslund said China's Yangtze river, the Mekong river in Cambodia, the Ganges river in India and the Indus river system in Pakistan were among the world's most endangered rivers as evidenced by their dwindling river dolphin populations.

Ms Forslund said many people had never heard of river dolphins, which were smaller than marine dolphins, had a longer snout and were often blind, but they were one of the most threatened species in the world with some populations now comprising between 1,000 to just a handful of wild creatures.

She said dolphin populations had been suffering from damming, overfishing, bad farming and mining practices, pollution and sewage since the 1970s.

"You can see the link, river dolphins are dependent on the water and the people are dependent on the water so the levels of toxicity is probably the same in people living there - low levels of dolphins means unhealthy water," she said.

Outgoing WWF global freshwater program director Jamie Pittock said the case study of river dolphins was bad news for humans.

"They're really the canaries of the rivers - if the river dolphin population is healthy then the river's healthy," Mr Pittock said.

"Millions and millions of people, well they're suffering now, and they'll suffer even more if the dolphins go extinct because extinction of the dolphins means that the rivers are terribly polluted, there's not enough water, fish are dying and people in these countries are drinking the water from these rivers."

He said many people did not realise humans were just as susceptible to the environment as animals.

He said around 50 WWF representatives were working in the countries to restore the health to the ecosystems by rescuing dolphins, providing farming education and reducing poverty so villagers had the resources to look after their own environments.

He said it was hoped outlining the program's successes would prompt more scientists and financial backers from Australia to get involved.

UN project to save the rare Mekong dolphins

07/19/2007

An UN project aims to safeguard the species at risk of extinction and boost tourism in the area. Today the local fishermen live on less than 50 cents a day.

Phnom Penh (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Safeguarding the sweet water dolphins of Mekong, an extremely rare species which risks extinction, and re-qualifying the area to boost tourism and the local economy, where still today people live on less than 50 a day. That’s the aim of a project elaborated by a United Nations team who intend to convert 200km stretch of the Mekong River into a leading eco-tourism destination. “The Mekong River dolphin is a treasure we must protect. It is the second tourism icon of Cambodia, after Angkor Wat” (Khmer temple found in the archaeological site of Angkor, near Siem Reap city), says Thok Sokhum, the Cambodian tourism official overseeing the development of what will become the Mekong Discovery Trail.

According to the WWF, Between 80 and 100 of the dolphins are managing to survive in nine deep pools between the scenic town of Kratie and Cambodia's border with Laos; Conservationists have been warning for several years that the dolphins' demise is imminent, improving villagers' livelihoods is key to ensuring their survival.

This is why the UN’s World Tourism Organisation will pinpoint areas for infrastructure development and identify activities that will provide new sources of income for fishing villages in a region where most residents survive on less than US 50 cents a day. These villages have seen their incomes plunge even further as patrols of River Guards, set up to protect the dolphins, began cracking down on gill-net fishing, strictly enforcing fishing zones and targeting illegal methods such as dynamite, cyanide and electric-shock fishing, which risk compromising the river’s delicate ecosystem.

The project, which is being funded by the Cambodian government, the UN and the Dutch development agency SNV, has two phases: The first is an urban renewal plan for the provincial capital, Kratie that aims to turn the riverside town into a gateway to the country's spectacular but rarely visited northeast. Once the Kratie facelift is finalised, the Mekong Discovery Trail will be charted. This will include cycling paths and other eco-friendly activities that planners say will primarily benefit local communities and small-scale businesses, as well as the dolphins. The number of international tourists has been rising by about 20 per cent a year over the past several years, and is on track to surpass 2 million this year.

The Mekong dolphin (Irrawady dolphin)

An Irrawaddy dolphin, also known as the Mekong dolphin, swims in the river at Kampi village in Kratie province, 230 km (143 miles) northeast of Cambodia, March 25, 2007. Cambodia's rare Mekong dolphin is making a tentative comeback from the edge of extinction after net fishing was banned in its main habitat, Cambodian and World Wildlife Fund officials said earlier this month. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Rare Mekong dolphin making a comeback

A fisherman casts a net on the Mekong River in the Kampi district of northeastern Cambodia - the home of the largest group of Cambodia's rare Mekong, or Irrawady, dolphins, in this April 26, 2002 file photo. Cambodia's rare Mekong dolphin is making a tentative comeback from the edge of extinction after net fishing was banned in its main habitat, Cambodian and World Wildlife Fund officials said on Wednesday. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

March 7, 2007

• Mekong dolphin making a tentative comeback in Cambodia
• There are now about 160 dolphins in the upper Mekong River
• Net fishing banned in order to save dolphins
• They are also known as Irrawady dolphins

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Reuters) -- Cambodia's rare Mekong dolphin is making a tentative comeback from the edge of extinction after net fishing was banned in its main habitat, Cambodian and World Wildlife Fund officials said on Wednesday.

There are now about 160 dolphins, up from only 90 before net fishing was banned last year in the upper Mekong River in the eastern provinces of Kratie and Steung Treng borders, they said.

The absence of gillnets strung in the river, allowing dolphins from other reaches of the river to move in, was the main reason for the sudden jump in numbers, the officials said.

"We should have about 20 new babies born every year if the current trend continues," Touch Seang Tana, chairman of Commission for Mekong Dolphins Conservation, told Reuters.

"Within five years, we'll be worried we will not have enough fish for dolphins to eat because humans also need fish," he said.

Fishing was banned in the area last year and local people encouraged to grow crops or work in the growing tourism industry instead of fishing.

"The awareness, conservation and provision of alternative livelihoods to fishermen, have helped reduced adult mortalities," the WWF said in a statement.

Conservationists believe an estimated 1,000 dolphins, also known as Irrawady dolphins, live in India, Myanmar and Thailand.