Soc Trang team: Co-management - Consultation in Vo Thanh Van village, Cu Lao Dung

Photo memory for the end of the year with local participants at 2 meetings

The meetings started with reviewing of previous consultation on co-management, its benefits, principles and steps. Then people were asked (through individual questionnaires as well as whole group interview) to give us overall information on current situation of their livelihoods and local resource use. Information obtained is summarized below:

Overall issues:

• Mangrove forest is managed quite well in Cu Lao Dung. In fact, the big problem here is not mangrove but the aquatic resources, especially the exploitation of aquatic resources by a large number of outsiders from Trà Vinh and Bãi Giá (Trần Đề). It is noted that the problem of outsiders has just become serious since recent years.

• The aquatic resource is estimated to remain about only 30%, compared to 10 years ago. It is agreed that if this trend continues without any intervention, this would lead to depletion of natural resources in the green island.

• Thanks to the sea dyke built in 2000, there has been no record of saline intrusion and flooding due to sea level rise.

Some information about the natural resource collection:

Juvenile elongated goby: is the most collected natural resource among participants’ households. Mostly people walk to the forest for collecting juvenile elongated gobies. People also use boat. Tools used are long net, round net, hands... Months for collecting are from May to October. Amount collected per day (but not everyday, sometimes only 1-2 days per month) can be up to 100 – 200 g (300,000 – 600,000 VND).

Bee honey: People walk to the forest and use hand to collect bee honey. Time for collecting bee honey is from March to September. Amount collected per day can be up to 2-3 litres, sometimes even 5 litres. It is noted by local people that there are 2 kinds of bees (ong): “ong mật” and “ong ruồi”. It is interesting to know that, 10 years ago, there was no “ong mật” in Cu Lao Dung, however, just in recent 2-3 years, ong mật have come from elsewhere to this island. Honey from ong mật is sold for about 30,000 – 40,000 VND per litre. On the other hand, ong ruồi is original here but nowadays their number has been declined about 80%. Honey from ong ruồi has lighter color and can be sold with very good price as 300,000 VND per litre (nearly 10 times higher than honey from ong mật).

Mr. Hà Thanh Vô showing the honey from ong mật

The other resources collected in the forest are sesarmid crab, periophthalmus schlosseri, snails, dry wood.

Most of natural resource collected is in the forest, only few households answered that they go far to the mudflat to collect blue-spotted mudskippers, using hand, round net and juvenile clams, using dredging net.

Morning meeting at Mr. Thach Vinh's house