Project Sekong 2013: We’re Clearing Land So Villagers Can Dig Fishponds, An Important Source Of Protein

Among the various livelihood projects that we are enabling few are more popular than fishponds. And, what’s not to like?

The ponds don’t have to be big to serve as a suitable habitat for small fish, frogs, snails, crustaceans, and other edible organisms that are already part of the Lao villagers’ diet. With a pond in the backyard families have a steady source of protein and are spared hiking a distance to their prior fishing or netting places.

Last year, before our project wrapped, we cleared land for forty-seven new ponds in two villages. Some ponds were, literally, in people’s back yards. Others, just a short walk from home.

This is an easy place to establish ponds, since this part of Laos receives abundant rainfall throughout much of the year and, even in the dry season, there are free-running streams that can be diverted. In some places water can flow through a long series of linked ponds.

There are many traditional Lao recipes that call for the inclusion of small fish, sometimes no bigger than the minnows that American fishermen use for bait. Families with ponds commonly use dip nets to catch fish or frogs one meal at a time. If they want to harvest fish and preserve them for later use, they will salt them, smoke them or dry them in the intense, dry-season sun.