18
2016
Workshops were held in Mawlamyine and Mandalay on 11 July and 14 July 2016 respectively to share visions on the future for the Ayeyarwady and Thanlwin Rivers. The workshop was jointly hosted by Myanmar Healthy River Initiative (MHRI) and Participatory River Management (PRM) project to bring together stakeholders from local communities, government and civil society to discuss key issues in river basin management, compare river management approaches and formulate visions for the future management of the rivers.
A total of 110 representatives from state and national level Government, NGOs, universities, local communities from six sites of Ayeyarwady and Thanlwin Rivers bank, civil society and media attended the two events. The Ministers of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation of Mon State and Mandalay region each noted, when opening the workshops, the need to conserve and protect the river basins.
The workshops provided an important opportunity for villagers living along the rivers to discuss the key issues they are facing. In their presentations at the workshops, male and female villagers raises a range of issues including poor water quality for drinking and washing, river bank erosion, flooding, illegal fishing (including electric fishing), inadequate canals, low fish catches, poor rubbish disposal and effects from sand-mining on farming.
Their visions included clean river water for community use, regulated fishing, effective waste disposal systems and regulation of mining activities as well as better planning for irrigation canals and more productive farming along the rivers.
The villagers discussed with government officials and civil society how the river basins could be better monitored in the future to ensure livelihoods and the environment are protected.
Mr. Luke Taylor from ICEM said, “The MHRI acknowledges that crucial data on the Ayeyarwady and Thanlwin rivers is held within the lives and experiences of the river’s inhabitants. We are working with local communities from the Dry Zone to the Delta to describe the existing conditions of the rivers and the use of natural resources. The communities have already revealed changes in sediment and flood regime, soil fertility, fish catch, and rainfall patterns over the last decade”.
Daisy Gardener, Senior Program Manager, Myanmar Institute for Integrated Development said, “Communities living along the rivers have an important place in discussions about the future of the river management. Through this project Government officials have sat down with villagers and listened to their concerns and their thoughts. These workshops in Mawlamyine and Mandalay are a further opportunity for men and women villagers to have a direct voice in the future of the rivers that are so critical to their lives.”
The next steps of the project will be to agree on a number of indicators that communities can use in cooperation with local government to monitor their river’s health. This data that communities collect (for example on river bank erosion and water quality) can then provide local government and decision makers with the information they need to develop effective action plans to combat river pollution and other negative impacts.
The projects are implemented by Myanmar Institute for Integrated Development (MIID), Ecosystem Conservation and Community Development Initiative (ECCDI), International Centre for Environmental Management (ICEM), and International Water Management Institute and supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Water Land and Ecosystems, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Oxfam and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MoNREC).
July 18, 2016