For GSS Population Growth chapter 5. Excerpt: AKOL, CAMBODIA — ...Tonle
Sap Lake... yields about 300,000 tons of fish, making it one of the
world’s most productive freshwater ecosystems. ...But the Tonle Sap is
in trouble — from overfishing to feed a fast-growing population, from
the cutting of mangrove forests that shelter young fish, from
hydroelectric dams upstream, and from the dry seasons that are expected
to grow hotter and longer with climate change. ...Keo Mao, a 42-year-old
fisherman from Akol, says he hopes his five children can find a way out
of the life that has sustained his family for generations. “The lake
now is not really so good,” he said. “There are too many
people.”...Cambodia’s population is growing rapidly, at a rate of nearly
2 percent a year. Many rural Cambodians, including subsistence farmers
displaced by land grants to large agribusinesses, have migrated to the
Tonle Sap from upland areas. Others come after selling their farmland to
pay off debt. From 1998 to 2008, the most recent period studied, the
number of full-time Tonle Sap fishermen grew by 38 percent to 38,200,
and the number of lakeside farmers, many of whom fish part time,
increased 33 percent to 520,800. ...“But the human aspect of an
ecosystem is crucial,” said Jianguo Liu, who leads the International
Network of Research on Coupled Human and Natural Systems, or Chans-net, a
network of 1,300 ecologists, economists, and sociologists. “The central
message of Chans is that humans and nature are coupled, just like
husband and wife,” says Dr. Liu, director of the Center for Systems
Integration and Sustainability at Michigan State University. “They
interact, work together, and the impacts are not just one way. There are
feedbacks.” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/science/of-fish-monsoons-and-the-future.html. By Chris Berdik, The New York Times. |
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