The Mekong River

The Mekong River

The Mekong is one of the largest and most important river systems on earth. Over the course of thousands of millennia the Mekong has shaped the landscapes that it drains, dispersing the gift of life through water, silt and fisheries without bias throughout its realm. A complex tapestry of natural, cultural and historical environments evolved around the natural bounty of the river system and today the Mekong sustains the third greatest biodiversity of all the Worlds River systems and supports the way of life of some eighty million people representing more than one hundred ethnic groupings.

As the world’s most productive inland fishery the Mekong forms a critical source of protein for tens of millions of people, many of whom live on or below the poverty line and do not possess access to alternative protein sources. In recent times the current borders of China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam were demarcated and today these nations manage the magnificent natural phenomena known as the Mekong.

The Name Mekong is an English abbreviation of the Thai name for the River, ‘Mae Nam Khong’ which means, ‘Kong, Mother (of) Water’. This matriarchal name perhaps best reflects the reverence reserved for the river by so many of her people and its vitality is celebrated via diverse festivals, folk tales, rituals, rites and traditions throughout the length and breadth of the basin.

Most of the worlds people became aware of the Mekong when it’s delta regions and beyond were thrust into the global spotlight in association with a bitter conflict that raged in the region during the 1960’s and 70’s. The publicity surrounding the world’s first televised war has shaped international perceptions of the Mekong region more than any other factor, yet today the region exists in relative peace and for the grass roots Mekong peoples the river represents life, livelihood and sustenance rather than war or destruction.

The once abundant inland fisheries of the world have by and large been seriously compromised by human mismanagement in recent decades, however, today the Mekong remains one of the most pristine of the worlds great rivers. As the world’s most productive inland fishery the Mekong provides a greater annual aquatic harvest than the North Sea with a large proportion of this harvest consumed on a subsistence basis. The silt the river disperses throughout its flood plain provide some of the richest agricultural soils in Asia with the worlds two largest rice exporters (Thailand and Vietnam) depending heavily on the Mekong’s natural vitality  for their abundance.

The extremely complex ecology of the Mekong river system has evolved over 55 million years and researchers are still only in the early stages of understanding the true complexity of its cycles and the relationships between the river system and the great diversity of life it sustains.

The affects of rapid population growth, industrialization, increased resource use and deforestation among other factors are now threatening the time honored vitality of the Mekong. As we enter the new millennia it is more important than ever before that the Mekong River as a shared international resource depended upon by the people of six nations is managed responsibly and sustain-ably for the mutual benefit for all of the people whom depend upon it’s vitality, regardless of which part of the valley they are from.

In particular the Mekong basins most vulnerable peoples, those who live on the thin line of subsistence must be taken into account when major profit motivated development decisions that affect the river systems vitality are made, for it is the Mekong’s subsistence people and the environments upon which they depend that will pay the greatest price for any decline in the ecological vitality of the Mekong basin.