SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS

No studies exist on the social and economic impacts of the wild-capture fisheries for aquaculture seed in the lower Mekong basin. The development of the Pangasiid catfish industry in Viet Nam has had tremendous economic impacts both at national and local levels.

The entire industry, including the research activities and subsequent hatchery development that has rendered the wild seed fisheries for Pangasiid catfish seed obsolete, was initially triggered by the traditional capture of Pangasiid catfish seed.
The capture of wild seed is generally carried out by relatively poor fishers in the Mekong basin and the captured juveniles provide much needed additional seasonal income. The banning of the fisheries may therefore have had significant local-level socio-economic impacts which were not assessed prior to the introduction of bans. In some cases, the bans resulted in fishing gear confiscation, causing additional economic loss to fishers.

As Box 1 shows, some Pangasiid catfish juvenile fishers were able to take advantage of the subsequent hatchery development and become seed producers after the capture seed fishery was banned.
There do not appear to be any data or information on the socio-economic importance of the juvenile fisheries for Pangasiid catfishes and snakehead in the Mekong basin, including the socio-economic impacts that bans on certain fisheries (such as the dai fisheries for Pangasiid larvae) have had on local fisher communities.