tsbr-ed.org). The Tonle Sap Lake supports a "huge population" because of its fisheries, the productivity of those fisheries, and the fresh water supply provided, the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve project (TSBR) explains. Indeed, Tonle Sap Lake provides "the last refuge for some of Asia's most globally significant biodiversity" (TSBR).
The management and funding, along with the conservation of Tonle Sap Lake is handled in large part by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), but also helping with funding: The United Nations Development Programme; the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the Capacity 21 Program.
The Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve has as a goal the fulfillment of three important functions: a) conservation of landscapes, ecosystems and species diversity; b) culturally, socially, and ecologically sustainable development; and c) research, monitoring, and education (www.mekonginfo.org).
The Tonle Sap Lake is connected to "streams, lakes, streams, flooded plain, and wetland vegetation" (www.mekonginfo.org); it is also a unique hydrological lake and supports "a rich biological diversity…aquatic plants, fish, waterfowl, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and microorganisms" (www.mekonginfo.org).
Tonle Sap Lake's Floating Villages
There are five villages that actually float on Tonle Sap Lake. "Classrooms sit on floating platforms and children row themselves to school on small sampans," according to Ker Munthit, writing in The America's Intelligence Wire. Vendors go "door-to-door" in small boats (sampans) and life is built around the flow of water in the lake. The floating village called Chong Kneas has about 5,800 people living in it and every year during the dry season their houseboats become anchored in the mud as the lake retreats. About seventy percent of the residents of Chong Kneas live on about seventy cents a day. "Every year, they have to move and buy clothes and kitchenware that blown away by the storms of the monsoon," said one of the villagers that Munthit interviewed.
Life would have been better for the floating community, the man said, if the government of Cambodia had not abandoned a plan that was originally conceived by the Asian Development Bank. That plan would have allowed Chong Kneas to move to higher ground and become a permanent settlement instead of a floating one with radical changes every year due to the change in water level in the lake. The higher ground settlement would have meant "a clean water supply, sanitation, roads, schools and medical clinics" (Munthit, 2006).
That having been said, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen was quoted as saying the lake "functions as part of the cultural heritage and history" (Xinhua News Agency). And despite its importance as a cultural place, the Prime Minister also said there should be oil drilling in the middle of the lake; he also promised to "develop the lake with sustainability, conserve the environment, develop tourism areas" and "promote hydroelectricity" (Xinhua News Agency). On the subject of ecotourism and tour companies, the community leader of Chong Kneas, Em Mann, said there was some resistance to the floating community's desire to move onto dry land, on higher ground. The touring companies lobbied the Cambodian government to not go through with the move. After all, tourists "like to visit the floating community," Mann said. "They must really thinking we are animals in a zoo here," he stated.
Serious Environmental Issues Associated with Tonle...
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