Why are there fewer fish? Southeast Asia’s poor suffer as Chinese money floods Mekong River, depleting resources
Nearly 4,800km long, it is the world’s largest inland fishery, second only to the Amazon for its biodiversity. And now leaders from all concerned nations are meeting in Cambodia to discuss its future
Cambodian fisherman Sles Hiet has lived at the mercy of the Mekong: a massive river that feeds tens of millions but is under threat from the Chinese dams cementing Beijing’s physical – and diplomatic – control over its Southeast Asian neighbours.
The 32-year-old, whose ethnic Cham Muslim community live on rickety houseboats that bob along a river in Kandal province, said the size of his daily catch has been shrinking by the year.
“We don’t know why there are less fish now,” he said of a mystery that has mired many deeper into poverty.
It is a lament heard from villages along a river that snakes from the Tibetan plateau through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before emptying into the South China Sea.
Nearly 4,800km long, the Mekong is the world’s largest inland fishery, second only to the Amazon for its biodiversity. It helps feed around 60 million people across its river basin.
Yet control over its taps rests to the north with China, whose premier Li Keqiang will land in Phnom Penh on Wednesday to lead a new regional summit that could shape the river’s future.