Through this project, Living River Association will operate a mobile fish hatchery working with 60 community-managed fish conservation zones along the stretch of 260 kilometres of the Ing River and other connected tributaries to the Mekong in northern Thailand. This technology is tailored to suit the endemic fish species and thence increases their survival in natural habitat. More than 1,000 local fisherfolks will benefit from livelihood security and sustain protein intake to these communities.
Worldwide Fund for Nature ranks the Mekong at the same level of biodiversity as the Amazon. Due to over 10 upstream Mekong dam construction, the influx of fishes through the seasonal floods that previously connected the Mekong and the Ing rivers, are disrupted. Over the past 5 years, the fish migration route into the Ing has been disconnected. According to International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List, 5 fish species in the Ing River are critically endangered of extinction.
The project supports interventions of artificial fish hatchery and breeding in existing 60 community-managed fish conservation zones along the Ing River. Currently, the local villagers have to buy a variety of fishes, some of them are invasive, and release into the river or extended swamp. The intervention, nonetheless, addresses the problem by directly hatching and reproducing endemic fish species within the river ecosystem and by involving around 300 artisanal fishers.
The project builds capacities of over 300 artisanal fishers from the communities that manage the fish conservation zones to understand and use the mobile fish hatchery technology and equipment. They will be the key actors in supporting the natural processes of fish reproduction which significantly diversify their household food intake and additional income generation of villagers in these 60 communities located in Chiang Rai and Phayao provinces along the Ing River, northern Thailand.
