28. Impacts and Implications of Deep Fisheries Reforms on the Governability of Small-Scale Fisheries in Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia

For over 100 years, auctioned “fishing lots” dominated the fisheries in Cambodia’s Great Lake, Tonle Sap. As part of the world’s largest single managed freshwater fishery, these large scale pre-colonial aquatic resource concessions enabled elite stakeholders to strictly control access to lake resources and to extract large aquatic resource rents, paying little in tax, and not being subjected to any truly effective upward accountability to the Fisheries Administration. In 2012, in conjunction with past reforms, the Prime Minister of Cambodia finally removed all remaining lots via a unilateral sub-decree known locally as the “deep fisheries reforms”. Using the interactive governance framework and governability assessment methodology, the chapter first outlines the historical context of the fishing lot system and small-scale fishing, and the causes for their often tumultuous and violent relationship. It then begins to unpack the underlying raison d’etre for this profound top-down decree. We explore potential impacts and outcomes of what their rapid removal means for any real system reform and increase in aquatic system governability. We examine the important cross scale and organizational level challenges now facing the multiple stakeholders and players in lake management as they try to coordinate and implement these “deep reforms”.