Co-management in Cu Lao Dung (7th negotiation meeting)

 

Time: 9:00 – 11:00 Date: 24.04.2013
Place: An Thanh Nam Commune People’s Committee, Cu Lao Dung District

The meeting started with a review of the last discussion. So far, we have identified membership of the co-management group (Who), zonation for the forest area (Where) and we started to talk about the resources that are being collected in the co-management area (What).The aim of today’s meeting was to identify how people collect the resources in more details (How). Results of the discussion are summarized in the following table:

Summary of the negotiation meeting on 24.04.2013

Resources	Collecting method	Regulation/Modification
Crab	- Push net for juvenile crabs (đẩy sịp, harmful, can damage young plants) - Round net with mosquito net mesh size for medium and smaller crabs - Hook, hands for big crabs	- Push net will be forbidden - Round net will be forbidden - Using hook, hands will be allowed These regulations will not be a problem as most local people in the co-management group do not use push net and round net, but outsiders do.
Snail	- Hands when water is low	- No further regulation needed
Shrimp	- Chemicals - Electric device (te) - 12 hell gate - Long net, mesh size 1.2 - 1.5 cm (đăng, can be up to 200-300 m long)	- Chemicals will be forbidden - Electric devices will be forbidden - 12 hell gate and long net will be forbidden in the co-management area Chemicals and electric devices are already forbidden by law. There is currently limitation in the use of 12 hell gate with the aim to forbid the use in the future.
Mudskipper	- Hands - Traps made of nypa’s leaves - Three-layer net (3 cm meshsize, 50 cm high)	- No further regulation needed These collecting methods are not considered as harmful.
Juvenile gobyfry	- 3 m fixed net (2 months in a year)	- Not forbidden It is acceptable when considering the high economic benefits for local livelihood and the little harmful impact to environment (only limited time of the year, for 2 months).
Fish (cá đối, cá ngát)	- Chemicals, both natural root toxin (dây thuốc cá) and pesticide - Three-layer net - Hands	- Both natural root toxin and other chemicals will be forbidden - Three-layer net and hands will be allowed Chemicals, even the natural root poison, are dangerous as they kill everything.

The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, 15 May 2013.