Impediments to community fisheries management: Some findings in Kompong Pou commune, Krakor District in Cambodia's Tonle Sap

This paper broadly assesses some reasons why co-management of inland fisheries by resource users and state agencies in Cambodia remains difficult to realize. Our survey of the resources, human capacity and associated de facto mechanisms for achieving community fisheries (CFi) objectives among fishing communities of Krakor District, located along Tonle Sap Lake, found these mobilizations at a crossroads in terms of empowered institutional and legal frameworks. Although the commune is a local administrative authority in the context of Cambodia's evolving decentralization and deconcentration (D&D) reform process, decision making and accountability in natural resource management have yet to be transferred to, or opened to participation from, local and subcommune level stakeholders and agencies. Furthermore, the institutional links between the commune council and CFi are ambiguous. This lack of linkages between central government, state agencies and CFi has left fisherfolk struggling to survive against more powerful competing interests. The preliminary findings presented here suggest that the achievement of sustainable CFi management in the Tonle Sap Lake remains problematic without local level decision making powers, sustained funding of CFi and related local government, and partnership between key shareholders in rural development programmes that recognize and encompass women's roles in natural resource management.