Sustainability

Okay, let's talk subsistence. This picture is from the village at the end of the Tonle Sap. This is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia at the end of the rainy season. At the end of May the lake encompasses approximately 2500 square kilometers. The meltwater from the Himalayan mountains fills the Mekong River as it flows through the northwest and central parts of Cambodia. At about the same time the monsoon rains come, filling the lake so rapidly that the water pressure in the area of Phnom Penh causes the Tonle Sap river to reverse course and return the water into the lake. At the end of the rainy season, the Tonle Sap encompasses an area of over 10,000 square kilometers. The river and lake system is the lifeblood of much of the country providing water for the rice fields, fresh fish, a reservoir, and a channel for communication, transport, and providing tourists with some great pictures. This picture shows the catch of the day being unloaded, weighed, and sorted. The pink bags are the ones you will see in the market if you should go there. In addition to eating the fresh fish, the catch can be dried and some of it is made into fish paste, a staple of the Cambodian diet.

A friend who took me out to see this worked for a non-governmental organization that was interested in sustainable development. This group is interested in teaching farmers how to grow crops for their own consumption as well as for commercial profit. In the U.S. we often have large crop surpluses and would have even more if the U.S government didn't pay farmers not to plant a crop. Here, any surplus is sold, but this is not a common occurrence since most of the harvest is used by the farmer. Currently there is a crisis in the rice supply created by a number of factors.