Friday, July 30, 2010

Fishermen Say They Are Forced Into Illegal Catches

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Thursday, 29 July 2010

“If we didn’t do it, we would have nothing to eat,” he said, looking at fishing nets hanging on a nearby wall. “Fishing is our farming here.”
Local fishermen on the Tonle Sap lake in the province of Battambang say they continue to fish illegally during the off-season.

In interviews with VOA Khmer, the fishermen said they have no choice but to continue fishing, sometimes with banned equipment, in order to feed their families, despite a three-month ban instituted by the government that begins each July.

“The ban is like breaking our rice pot,” said 53-year-old fisherman Chhun Leang.

He sat in a wooden house on the great lake, in the floating village of Anlung Ta Our, in Ek Phnom district, and when boats passed their wakes shook his home.
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