Our partner Marine Conservation Cambodia (MCC) is a non-profit organization that advances marine conservation and community livelihoods in collaboration with the Cambodian Fisheries Administration. Led by founder Paul Ferber, MCC is making a striking difference on a modest budget.  Read about Paul...

• Current Sea Current Sea Film LLC, 2020
• Cambodia volunteers step up battle against illegal fishing.  Nikkei Asia 2018-06-02.
• Building a refuge where trawlers now ravage Cambodia’s marine life  Mongabay 2017-12-14
• Authorities Investigate Whale Shark’s Capture. The Cambodia Daily 2017-02-13
• British conservationist fights to save seahorses in Cambodia.  Phys.org 2017-01-06.
• The mystery of the Kingdom’s dwindling catch. The Phnom Penh Post 2016-01-16
• New fisheries office inaugurated in Kep  The Phnom Penh Post 2015-12-04
• Illegal Fishing Destroying Kep’s Ocean Ecosystem The Cambodia Daily 2015-10-24
• Tracking seahorse ‘tattoos’.  The Phnom Penh Post 2015-07-17 
• Former British Policeman is battling to save Cambodia’s coastline.  The Telegraph 2015-06-01
• The Horrors of Fishing With Dynamite.  The New York Times 2015-02-04.

Since 2008, MCC has been working in collaboration with the Royal Government of Cambodia Fisheries Administration, local authorities and local communities. (Community awareness campaigns have brought support from all but two fishing communities.)

Cambodian marine ecosystems and local fishing communities are being rapidly destroyed by illegal fishing practices of dynamite, cyanide, electric fishing, and large scale bottom trawling (dragging). The perpetrators are outsiders: Vietnamese or large commercial boats. This is unsustainable fishing at its worst. MCC foresaw that the local fishing industry and livelihoods of small scale fishers would likely vanish within the next decade. It became MCC's goal to achieve a sustainable and responsible way of fishing that benefits local communities and marine ecosystems.

MCC's marine monitoring, research and socioeconomic work formed a basis for the creation of the first Marine Fisheries Management Area in Preah Sihanouk Province. The organization is now focused on the small coastal province of Kep. With help from international volunteers, it is undertaking marine surveys around Kep's 13 islands to monitor the coral reefs, seagrass beds and seahorse populations, thereby assisting the Provincial Authorities with the development of Fisheries Management areas — Cambodia's equivalent to Marine Protected Areas.

The marine protected area created around Koh Seh and in Kep province is already seeing the return of many species that had disappeared, reefs are regrowing in a healthy manner, seagrass regrowing and offering important shelter to marine organisms, and seahorses beginning a slow comeback. These are the results of establishing a protected area and doing regular patrols.

For the operation concerned with this project, MCC has been granted authorization to patrol a wider area (all of Kep's waters). Without patrols, these fragile ecosystems, left vulnerable to further destruction exacerbated by the current algae bloom, would almost totally collapse.

For more information on seahorses and their conservation see Project Seahorse.

Night patrols by field partner MCC, along with collaboration with the Cambodian Fisheries Administration, have increased enforcement. In the project's first three months 13 illegal fishers were detained, 5 boats were impounded and there were numerous confiscations of gear. A speedy judicial system resulted in the operators of five boats going to court, all of whom received jail terms of 1-2 years. This demonstration of the effectiveness of patrols has spurred greater action by the government fisheries administration to do patrols of their own.

Anti-trawling devices, which MCC has begun manufacturing (using concrete), are an additional strong deterrent to illegal fishing. Bottom trawling gear gets caught up in them and destroyed. In addition, the devices serve as a substrate for many marine organisms including oysters and mussels, thereby boosting opportunities for local fishers. Depending on their size, anti-trawling devices cost just $55 to $140 to make.

MCC has created a small marine protected area that demonstrates that with protection, seagrass beds, coral reefs and fish communities can recover, providing benefits to biodiversity and enabling sustainable fishing by small-scale family fishers. To expand on this success, MCC is working on a proposal for a marine fisheries management area (aka marine protected area) and a proposal to restore oyster and mussel beds.