By Daravuth Kong
High up in the highlands of Luang Prabang province, I stood at the intersection of necessary environmental protection and community survival when a restriction on river fishing represented not only a legislative decision for the community of Viengsavanh but also a significant change in the way local Indigenous People live. The stillness of the protected water seemed to be asking me this challenging question: How will communities who relied on fishing for generations survive when their river is closed?
The “Enhancing Fisheries Resilience and Managing Fisheries Resources Through Local Community Participation” (EFRAM) Project
In order to restore fish stocks that had been depleted by hydropower dams, climate change, excessive unlawful fishing and weak governance, our project team had just successfully gained approval for a Fish Conservation Zone (FCZ) along the Nam Xuang River. Earlier, Maejo University’s Faculty of Fisheries Technology and Aquatic Resources, Thailand, and Northern Agriculture and Forestry College (NAFC), Laos, had been commissioned by the Stockholm Environment Institute (Asia Center) to establish a participatory framework for aquatic resource conservation on the Nam Xuang.
However, it soon became apparent to the project team that, apart from being an environmental problem, the fisheries crisis also threatened the livelihoods and food security of reliant communities.
So, while the FCZ designation made a significant contribution to academic and scientific environmental findings and to water governance in the area, an important lesson learned is that, for the conservation effort to be truly resilient, it needs to coexist with local livelihood empowerment.
The Paradox of an FCZ
The FCZ demarcation approved by the local authority was a moment of both communal pride and, at the same time, of quiet concern. A focus group discussion was held to record stories of change and document lessons learned after the approval was granted. Complex emotions were seen on the faces of the villagers. They had wanted to safeguard their river, but were also worried about their livelihoods. They understood the scientific findings about the decline of fish species that our project presented to them. But the research findings which filled the evidence gap could not fill the villagers’ plates. The dilemma is this one: to preserve fisheries for the future, access to the river must be restricted in the present. This restriction leads to a livelihood gap. When survival demands outweigh FCZ obligations, and without any alternative means of subsistence, the villagers will likely go back into a cycle of excessive, unlawful, or harmful use of river resources in order to survive.
A community can be truly resilient only if it possesses the tools and capacity to sustain itself (Engle 2022); necessary assistance must therefore be provided. The FCZ should be an opportunity for community empowerment rather than a sacrifice made by the villagers for the good of the environment.
This essay presents Community-Based Aquaculture (CBA) as a potential means for transforming the villagers from passive onlookers of the restricted river to active creators of their own subsistence and livelihood. But first, let’s look at Community-Based Training (CBT) which is a fundamental building block of CBA itself.
How Do CBT and CBA Work?
Community-Based Training is a capacity-building program specifically designed for rural communities, with a focus on improving livelihoods and creating self-employment. The program targets vulnerable and disadvantaged beneficiaries, including out-of-school youth, women, unemployed adults, and disadvantaged groups (such as subsistence farmers and fisherfolk), Indigenous Peoples, and members of the informal economy. CBT offers an inclusive framework which addresses specific local community needs. It is often incorporated into development initiatives where it empowers participants by engaging their active participation in planning and decision-making and by involving them in a continuous cycle of action and reflection (Rosas 2006).
Skills acquired through CBT can then be applied to CBA which is founded on the basic principle of common interest. CBA aims to provide an additional income-generating activity which will improve livelihood and food security for rural communities. In addition, CBA is intended to reduce overreliance on natural aquatic resources and to support biodiversity conservation (Ireland 2004; Allison 2011; Troell 2014). CBA provides a framework for collaborative management that turns shared river resources into profitable, sustainable assets and operates on the basis of shared infrastructure, communal governance, and equitable benefit distribution. The main target beneficiaries of CBA are underprivileged and disadvantaged groups who lack access to formal training services and frequently have minimal financial options, limited managerial ability, and poor skill levels (Ateweberhan 2018). This participatory approach allows them to be involved in decision-making, including how to divide tasks and benefits among themselves, as well as in the implementation, supervision and control of management measures.
The rationale behind suggesting CBA was to empower the villagers around the FCZ and transform them from constrained fishers to resilient aquaculture producers by making good use of the community’s available resources such as rivers, small ponds, traditional knowledge and skills. This was to be achieved by technical and financial support for stakeholders from local and national government, NGOs, community-based organizations, private partners, and donors.
When local people are empowered with new skills and livelihoods are diversified, the community is better able to adapt to environmental concerns and climate change. The community then remains a resilient, self-sufficient guardian of its river. In effect, the support offered by a CBA trial at the FCZ can potentially and effectively bridge the gap between fishery conservation and community survival.
CBA and Gender Empowerment
In the EFRAM project’s gender scoping analysis of 30 women and minority individuals, almost half of the respondents said that “there is a perception that men benefit more in resources in the river, compared to women. Men are typically involved in primary fishing activities, while women participate in post-harvest activities and manage household food security.”
It’s clear that in the Mekong Basin, aquaculture is often seen as a male-dominated sector. However, the CBA model intentionally seeks to break this mindset. One of CBA’s primary objectives is to provide affected community members, including women and minorities, with vocational livelihood skills in domains where men have traditionally held the upper hand in the household.
Encouraging these groups to participate in CBA directly challenges gender norms, promotes financial independence, and changes the traditional belief that men are the only ones who provide for their families. Importantly, the CBA framework also encourages the participation of men which raises their awareness about gender equality, shifts unfavorable societal norms and thus creates sustainable social change (Pamesa 2025).
Case Studies of CBA Implementations: Successes, Challenges and Lessons Learned
In Odisha, India, where poverty and food insecurity are prevalent, the government launched a program to empower women through aquaculture. Its focus was on backing nutrition-sensitive carp-mola polyculture in community ponds through Women Self-Help Groups (WSHGs). The initiative successfully closed the gap between food security and economic agency by empowering WSHGs via targeted training and implementation of better management practices. WSHGs reported profitable fish farming with carp-mola polyculture systems as they yielded substantial net incomes. The program’s impact extended beyond economic benefits by encompassing environmental improvement, women’s empowerment, and enhanced nutrition outcomes. In the final analysis, this women-supported aquaculture program proved effective and offered a scalable blueprint for sustainable rural development, despite difficulties with input prices and limited supply (Dubey 2024).
Another case study of CBA began in 1992 in rural areas of Thailand. This project recognized village schools as the most efficient focus sites for aquaculture development. To assist impoverished communities in boosting rural fish production, the government established the School Fishpond Program (the Lunch Program). This School-Based Aquaculture (SBA) integrated pond management directly into the educational environment. The program’s primary goal was to enhance the nutritional condition of schoolchildren by supplying fish for consumption through self-help fish growing projects which involved building fishponds, providing aquaculture training, and giving schools fish seed and technical guidance. The program’s strength lied in its ability to transform village ponds into outdoor classrooms, providing opportunities for adaptive, hands-on aquaculture skill learning. Through this experiential process, students and communities witnessed a vivid demonstration of the link between aquaculture management, improved livelihoods, and human health (Chumnongsittathum 2008).
While some CBA initiatives have provided successful stories, the Western Indian Ocean’s CBA project gives timely guidance about identifying practical challenges and learning valuable lessons. This CBA project was implemented as an important alternative or supplementary income generating activity to minimize the overdependence on marine natural resources and to promote biodiversity conservation. The CBA activities practiced in the region were assessed through workshop discussions involving practitioners and key stakeholders. Due to a lack of local ownership, many CBA projects in this area were unable to end the cycle of poverty and the loss of biodiversity. Some fell into a social-ecological trap since they were not driven by local entrepreneurs and indigenous partners, but rather by outside donors with impractically short timeframes. Several barriers were identified, such as a lack of technical expertise, inadequate seed and feed supplies, and a top-down decision-making process which ignored the local voices (Ateweberhan 2018).
Recommendations
Based on the unsuccessful implementation of CBA in the above case, it is clear that CBA needs to shift from short-term project mentality to long-term capacity building and financial sustainability. In addition, aquaculture in the community-based model must be rooted in local institutions, such as the School Fishpond Program of Thailand, to ensure that the management stays in the hands of the community even after external funding ends. Furthermore, systematizing aquaculture within formal education is a smart approach. It ensures that essential technical skills are transferred to the young generation and it creates a sustainable buffer against food insecurity, both of which ultimately empower rural community members to build resilient livelihoods.
Conclusion
In our case, the EFRAM project addressed the urgent need for fishery conservation by employing a bottom-up approach that prioritized the perspectives of local villagers, including women, minorities, and marginalized groups. A primary outcome of the project was the formal approval of the Fish Conservation Zone (FCZ).
Our project found that CBA could potentially be a crucial counter-balance to the FCZ’s promulgation thanks to CBA’s promise of social-economic resilience for the Viengsavanh community in Northern Laos. The plus side for this community is that it already has a strong traditional bond with fish and water. Overfishing can and should therefore be replaced by CBA, an outcome which allows the community to create an alternative income source and, at the same time, to preserve its fishery resource. There are currently limited research projects and few established experiments about CBA. This essay therefore suggests that, for the moment, CBA should be treated as an adaptive trial which prioritizes locally contextual demands.
AQUADAPT 