As the sun sets and the darkness falls, fishermen at Con Chim – Thi Nai Lagoon start their daily livelihood activities. They rows boat to Con Chim for catching fish and crabs. Nighttime light at Con Chim begins.
Fishing at Con Chim
Fisherman Nguyen Huu Nien, 31, from Con Chim hamlet, Vinh Quang 2 village, Phuoc Son commune, Tuy Phuoc district, was rowing his boat to the middle of the lagoon for setting his fishing net. He decided to set the net at an area about 5km away from the shore.
“Everybody at Con Chim can swim, dive and know how to catch fish when he is still a child,” Nien said as he was setting the net. “When I was 10 years old, I followed my older brother in his fishing trips at the lagoon. The catching was so simple, just setting nets after observing flows. Local people here mainly worked at nighttime.”
“At that time, forests were so thick and verdant, and aquatic resources were so abundant. My brother and I could catch a lot of big fish. Later, people rushed to practice shrimp farming and started to chop down a lot of trees. That’s why the forests disappear now.”
The mangrove forests at Con Chim are now a part of childhood memories of older generation, like Nien.
“Our lives depend on the lagoon. Thus, each family here has at least one small boat as mean of transportation and for fishing,” said Nguyen Huu Buoc, another local fisherman. “Local people previously just used simple tools to catch fish but some people now practice electric socks in the fishing.”
“Although there are few of them, their practice causes big losses of the aquatic resources. The lagoon now suffers a poverty of the aquatic resources because of the deforestation. People didn’t realize that before but they think differently now.”
Memories of Con Chim mangrove forests
Statistical figures show that 400 hectares of Con Chim mangrove forests disappeared and 300 hectares of shrimp farming replaced instead.
Nguyen Van Thom, 54, from Vinh Quang 2 village took us tour around the vast Con Chim, which has just shrimp farms. In his memories, there were thick forests around Con Chim before.
“We couldn’t use big boats to get to Con Chim because of thick mangrove forests. Instead, we used small boats to weave through the forests. Trees grew in a hustle and sunlight couldn’t penetrate through. We used to get into the forests in groups to avoid being lost in the thick forests. We also broke tree branches off to mark the route out. There were a lot of birds, fish, crabs and shrimps in the forests at that time,” he said as pointing to an area about 300m between Con Chim and Con Trang.
At Con Chim before, there were also many bees and birds, particularly spotted dove. Local people picked up a full basket of bird eggs. That’s the reason why old local people call the place Con Cu Cu (Spotted Dove Islet).
In a short period of time, from 1981 to 2000, the mangrove was being chopped down all. Those who intended to open shrimp farming chopped down the trees for their farms. Those who didn’t start farming chopped down the trees for woods.
As Thi Nai Factory of Shrimp Farming had a bumper harvest of shrimp, the local people followed the factory. They got high benefits at first from the shrimp farming and their life started became better.
But then, the farmed shrimps began to die of diseases; environment was polluted; ecosystem of the lagoon was devastated; the aquatic resources sharply reduced. Many shrimp farmers suffered total losses and got into big debts. They bitterly realized the value of the mangrove forest and began to think of the reforestation.
Reforestation
Local people at Con Chim started to grow trees again firstly at their lands and around their houses.
In 2004, a project named “Ecosystem restoration and reasonable exploitation, use of resources at Con Chim – Thi Nai Lagoon” was implemented. The project management board co-operated with the local people in the mangrove reforestation.
After 8 years of striving efforts, mangrove trees grew up and gave seeds for the regeneration. The project management board gives free trees to the local people and provides saplings for other provinces in the central region of Vietnam, from Binh Dinh to Hue.
“Of 10 saplings, only 1 can survive. Sometimes, all of them die,” says Tran Thanh De, a member of the project management board. “It is harder to grow trees because water levels of the lagoon often rise up quickly.”
“Standing in the waters for such a long time, the saplings become waterlogged and rotten. Survival rate is so low. We have to master the tides before starting to grow the trees and give them to the local people. It is easier to grow trees whenever we succeed in setting up an outer line of trees first.”
Besides the tasks of reforestation, the management board also collaborate with local government in preventing the over-exploitation at the lagoon; instructing local people to practice eco-friendly shrimp-farming, extensive shrimp – crab – oyster farming with aim to improve the environment while ensure sustainable livelihood of the local people.
So far, 40 hectares of mangrove have been reforested. Besides, local people and government have grown nearly 100 hectares of mangrove around their lands. The areas of reforestation are increasing.