Facilitating Change: A Mekong Vietnamese Small-Scale Fishing Community

Abstract

As one of the poor provinces in the Mekong Delta, Ben Tre has the three poorest coastal districts, namely Binh Dai, Ba Tri, and Thanh Phu. Thanh Phong is one of the 18 communes of Thanh Phu. The objectives of this chapter are: (1) to understand poverty and discover its causes among the poor fishers in Thanh Phong; (2) to evaluate the insufficiency of poverty-alleviating policies for small-scale fisheries in Thanh Phong; (3) to suggest tailored solutions and poverty-alleviating policies for Thanh Phong. Currently, Thanh Phong has a community of 56 fishing households making a living from small-scale fisheries. Illegal fishing gear is still being used, like “day-mung” nets with a very small (1–1.5 mm) mesh size. With small-scale boats and simple fishing tools, the productivity as well as the commercial value of the fish caught are very low. There is awareness among the households that inshore fisheries’ resources are limited, and that their illegal practices are exhausting the resources. However, the dependence on fisheries’ resources and the absence of alternative incomes force people to use destructive kinds of fishing gears. As a consequence, the vast majority of the poor fishers in Thanh Phong have to face livelihood uncertainty and the threat of increasing poverty. Compared with the poverty line adopted by the government of Vietnam, the poverty rate of 12.7% in 2008 is considered high, and the rate of 13.3% in 2009 is a signal of poverty persistence. Government ­support is needed to combat poverty, including upgrading the infrastructure and assisting in creation of alternative jobs and better education.