Rethinking Learning in Community Fish Refuge Management: Insights from Cambodia

Abstract

Inland fisheries are central to rural livelihoods in Cambodia, providing both subsistence and seasonal income. Community Fish Refuges (CFRs) are a recent innovation in the Tonle Sap floodplain to retain floodwater and provide dry season aquatic habitats. They offer a sustainable strategy to enhance fish productivity within rice field fisheries by protecting fish populations in communal water bodies managed by local communities. As new shared multiple-use assets, CFRs represent a need for a new management and learning system that can foster resource management that is both a collective effort and integrates the needs of multiple water stakeholders. While the ecological and production benefits of CFRs are well documented, the challenge is how communities and CFR Committees can adapt, through collective learning, to collectively managing this shared asset in the long term. Unequal access to learning driven by social inequalities, hierarchical communication structures, and short project cycles undermines inclusive participation, peer learning, and leadership renewal in CFRs. Ultimately, all learning processes must be guided by local needs and contextual realities and grounded in approaches that affirm local communities' rights to food security, self-determination, ongoing processes of collective learning, and inclusive participation in environmental governance.