C AMBODIA is forming a National Wetland Committee and planning to sign an
international convention on preserving the world's wetland
areas.
Cambodia's wetlands are considered environmentally and
ecologically important because they sustain fisheries and provide flooding
protection.
Sabu Bacha, Under-Secretary of State of the Ministry of
Environment, said Cambodia's lack of wetlands policy jeopardized the
environment.
At a three-day wetlands seminar in Phnom Penh this month, it
was announced that a National Wetland Committee would be established to form
much-needed policies.
Cambodia also expects to sign the Ramsar
Convention, to seek foreign assistance for the preservation and sustainable use
of wetland resources, by the end of the year.
The Ramsar organization,
headquartered in Switzerland and with 80 member countries, promotes
international cooperation on the protection of waterfowl and other wetland
species.
Sabu Bacha said Ramsar experts would visit Cambodia to advise
the government on wet lands management.
Places such as the Tonle Chmar
Lake, adjoining the Tonle Sap Lake, and Kapi Island in Koh Kong province would
be declared specially-protected wetland areas.
Funds would be sought from
foreign donors to establish wetlands projects to protect nature and attract
tourists.
The government did not want to hurt residents who profited from
wetlands, he said, but to teach them "how to fish
[sustainably]".
Minister of Environment Mok Mareth said the Phnom Penh
seminar discussed the importance of wetlands and the problems of managing
them.
Cambodia's wetland areas are located in four major places: north of
the Mekong River, from Kratie province to the Laotian border; the floodplain
areas of the Mekong River, from Kompong Cham to the Vietnamese border; the Tonle
Sap Lake and neighboring areas; and the country's southern and western
coastlines.
They include sandy beaches, reef flats, lakes, flooded
forest, swamps, rivers and reservoirs, mudflats, seagrass and mangroves, and
rice fields.
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