Village Systems

Village Systems

There are 85 villages in Sanasomboun District located in 4 different types of village locations, broadly described as; Mekong Mainstream; Major Tributory (Sedone River); Floodplains or Lowland; and Hills or Upland. Within any of these village locations villagers make use of a range of aqua-environments. The range of aqua-environments exploited in Sanasomboun District include: Mekong River; Sedone River; small streams; natural ponds or backswamps; ricefields; and aquaculture ponds.

Villages in Sanasomboun District vary in size and accessibility, with the larger and more accessible villages near the Mekong River. These villages tend to have more "open" fisheries and thus be more difficult to manage as exclusive fisheries zones. The less accessible villages are also smaller in size, and are located at some distance from the main riverine fisheries environments. Except for the hill villages, most areas of Sanasomboun are reasonably well endowed with paddy rice land, which is the mainstay of village subsistence economies. Infrastructure varies through the District. Many villages are located at some distance from the main road, although more than a quarter of the District's villages have direct access to the Mekong River. Electricity connection is highly variable, with a clear gradient from Mekong to Hill villages. This has implications for refrigeration of fish, and more generally for the commercialisation of village economy. Most villages are fairly stable in terms of new in- and out-migrants on a permanent basis, and most population change is still by natural increase.

A key feature of the villages in Sanasomboun District is that fishing is part of an exceptionally wide resource and livelihood portfolio. Moreover, fishing itself draws on a range of fishery environments, and this diversity is marked by different patterns in different village types. Furthermore, there are slightly different patterns of access and dependence between subsistence and commercial uses of fish. While there is an overwhelming pattern of rice farming as the main work activity, mainly for subsistence, and fishing as the secondary activity, for both subsistence and income supplement, a wide range of alternative occupations are drawn on by many villages - notably horticulture, livestock rearing, trade and paid employment. Weaving and other handicrafts also continue to be significant in many villages. Temporary migration for labouring outside village boundaries is predominant in the more accessible Mekong, and to a lesser extent Sedone villages. Nevertheless, almost all villages' livelihoods continue to depend on the natural resource base, which remains varied and of which fishing is only a part. The diversity of livelihoods in Sanasomboun is matched by a diversity of fishing environments upon which each community depends. As a result, there is considerable movement within the Mekong and Sedone floodplains by fishers who take advantage of different waterbodies at different times of year and for different purposes. In some cases, distances travelled are quite small and may involve shared fisheries between neighbouring communities. In other cases they are longer, and this suggests careful study of the existing users of each fishery is required before management changes and other interventions are suggested or devised.

Indigenous fisheries in four villages

In addition to a survey of all 85 villages in the District, for which village-specific information was recorded, four villages representing each of the four village locations were studied in detail. These villages are:

Following typical patterns for Lao PDR, the four villages have a relatively youthful population. This is reflected in an age structure in which almost half of the population is under 15 years of age. Roughly one-quarter each are aged between 15 and 30 and between 31 and 60 respectively, while very few are aged over 60.

The study enhances the picture of catch and consumption aspects of fisheries in four villages of Sanasomboun District, taking analysis down to the household level. Several key points emerge from the study of the four villages.

First, of the four villages, two have a more robust riverine fishery. Don Kho exploits its location on an island in the Mekong River to derive quite a comfortable supplementary livelihood from river fishing which, though seasonal in nature, is not as clearly differentiated between seasons as other fisheries in other locations. Solonoi also derives important subsistence and income benefits from the Sedone fisheries in both seasons, more especially during the latter part of the dry season. In contrast, Khamyaad village, located upstream of the Selabam Dam, has a much less robust fishery.

Second there are differences within as well as between villages. It cannot be assumed that characterising overall fish dependence on a village level will reflect the differences between better off and less well off households, between those more and less skilled at fishing, and between those with different other work and income demands competing for family labour.

Third, small scale waterbodies provide vital sources of fish at times of year when riverine fisheries assume lesser importance. Management and access rights to these sources are more directly under the control of local communities and individual families or family groups. The diversity of dependence on such sources in, and at a distance from, families' home village areas indicates that caution needs to be taken in any regulation or limitation of access rights which may undermine the range of fishery environments accessed by each family.

Fourth, patterns of fish sales and gifts need to be taken into account in considering access to fish. While it is correct to characterise Sanasomboun fisheries primarily as subsistence-based, access to fish depends on social networks as well as fish caught or purchased by individual families, while the income supplementation role of fish should not be underestimated.

Fifth, fish eaten fresh by the families of fishers are less important overall than other sources. Fermented fish is a particularly significant staple in all villages. In Sonphak, there are periods of the year when most fish and fish products need to be bought from the market. This suggests that there is an intra-District trade between fish-surplus and fish-deficit villages. It is important to recognise such consumption and marketing patterns in order to understand the role of fish in diets and livelihoods at the household level.

While the villages were selected as characteristic of the key aqua-ecosystems identified in the wider District survey of Sanasomboun, caution should be taken in extrapolating findings too generally.