Cambodian fishermen seek to preserve crab stocks amid climate crisis

The day Ung Bun caught just one crab only to let it go, he earned just $10 for fish he caught, money he used to pay for a litre of gasoline for his boat. / Photo: Reuters

"I feel despair that I cannot harvest even one crab after a day, when about five years ago, I would have caught about 10-20 kg of crabs. Yesterday morning I caught about four to five crabs," he said. The provinces of Kep and Kampot are famous among locals and foreign visitors for their delicious flower crabs but fishermen there are anxious about their small catches — a development that experts attribute to a warmer sea.

When Ung Bun and other participants catch gravid crabs they either release them back into waters where they are unlikely to be caught or bring them home to raise until they give birth.But Ung Bun's participation in the campaign results in even smaller catches and tension at home.

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As the sea warms, struggling Cambodian fishermen seek to preserve crab stocksFor Ung Bun, a 39-year-old fisherman from Cambodia's southern Kep province, the days when he would come home with plentiful catches of flower crabs appear to be long gone.
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