Story | 10 May, 2018
IUU fishing in Cu Lao Cham MPA: how to deal with it?
In April 2017, an IUCN team spent a week on Cu Lao Cham (CLC) in central Vietnam assisting negotiations between the management board and local fishing communities to expand the strictly protected zone of the Marine Protected Area (MPA) from less…
Story | 08 Jan, 2018
Youths unite for sustainable tourism in Sri Lanka
Nishanthan Sobana and her husband are a young couple from Sri Lanka's Mannar District who finished school in the crippled economy of the war-torn Northern Province. Even with her Bachelor's degree in Business Management, Nishanthan initially found it challenging to find a permanent job with a…
Story | 20 Sep, 2017
The northern province of Sri Lanka has gone through some tough times. Between 1980 to 2009, a civil war left over 60,000 people dead, 20,000 missing and 300,000 without homes. The province suffered another setback in 2004 when the Indian ocean struck and displaced over 5000 families.
Story | 17 Aug, 2017
Health N’ Delft: Low-salt dried fish for the health conscious
On Delft, an island in the Palk Strait north of Sri Lanka, approximately 1,200 out of a population of 4,502 rely on fisheries for their livelihoods. As freezer facilities to store fish are not available in the island, fishermen are forced to sell their daily catch to buyers from the mainland,…
Story | 07 Aug, 2017
In Iranawila village in Puttalam, a district situated on the west coast of Sri Lanka, 90% of the population relies on fishing for their livelihoods. In the past decade, villagers have been cutting and selling mangroves trees for the construction of dwellings, for firewood and for making…
Story | 26 Jun, 2017
New tools to assess vulnerability of wetlands in the Mekong
From June 19 to 21, IUCN staff, partners, and local officials from the Xe Champhone and Beung Kiat Ngong Ramsar sites in Lao PDR gathered in Champhone District for a training on the use of a new series of tools to assess the vulnerability of the areas’ wetlands. The…
Story | 06 Jun, 2017
Saving the world’s rarest primates by involving indigenous communities
A community-based conservation programme in northeastern Viet Nam is actively involving indigenous communities in Ha Giang and Cao Bang Province to protect the habitats of two Critically Endangered primates, the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus) and…
Story | 04 May, 2017
Working together to build MPAs for long-term marine resources management
Our oceans, coasts and wetlands are crucial for our survival. Mangrove forests, for example, sequester massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and protect coastal communities from cyclone storm surges, while coastal wetlands and coral reefs provide breeding and nesting grounds for…
Press release | 03 Apr, 2017
Enhancing regional cooperation to protect and restore Indo-Burma wetlands
The importance of regional cooperation took centre stage at the first Steering Committee meeting and inception workshop for the Indo-Burma Ramsar Regional Initiative (IBRRI), held on 29 and 30 March in Bangkok, Thailand.
Story | 29 Nov, 2016
Scaling up integrated mangrove-shrimp farming in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam
29 November 2016 – The second phase of the project “Restoration of mangroves through sustainable shrimp farming and emission reductions in Ca Mau province” (MAM) will be launched in Can Tho city, the heart of Mekong Delta in Vietnam. The event offers an opportunity for key stakeholders to…