Fish Conservation Zones As Tools for Fisheries Management and Conservation in Lao PDR

Fish Conservation Zones (FCZs), or areas that limit or prohibit fishing, have gained widespread popularity as fisheries management and conservation tools in marine and freshwater ecosystems around the world. By protecting critical habitats and allowing fish populations to increase in abundance, FCZs can serve dual purposes of protecting fish biodiversity and enhancing food security and livelihoods for local communities. Rapid development in the Mekong Basin has the potential to impact fish habitat and abundance, and effective fish conservation and management tools are urgently needed. Many organizations have engaged in establishing FCZs in the Mekong Basin, and FCZs number in the hundreds in Lao PDR alone. FISHBIO is working to establish FCZs in several villages on the mainstem Mekong River in northern Lao PDR, and has seen substantial local support for the concept. While FCZs are compelling in principle, the most important consideration is whether they are successful in practice. Biophysical, socio-economic and governance monitoring is greatly needed to address whether FCZs are effective tools for meeting their intended objectives. Both technological and community-based approaches can play an important role in the biological evaluation of FCZ effectiveness, and collecting such data could improve the management of FCZs throughout the region.