PHNOM PENH: Prime Minister Hun Sen shared that he worked late into Wednesday night, 26 April 2023, to form a new sub-decree that he believed would impact the lives of people in Kratie province and address a major ongoing issue for endangered dolphins in the Mekong river.

Speaking at the Closing Ceremony of the 2022 Training Course and Opening Ceremony of the 2023 Training Course of the Royal School of Administration on Thursday morning, 27 April, Prime Minister Hun Sen shared that he had worked late into the night with Minister of Agriculture Dith Tina to find a solution to the ongoing crisis of the dwindling Mekong dolphin population while preserving the livelihoods of Kratie fishermen.

The Prime Minister said that the existing sub-decree banning certain fishing practices in the dolphins’ habitat is ineffective and therefore should be repealed, saying, "Dolphins are still trapped in nets, no matter how banned they are. At the same time, it affects thousands of families," he said. "The sub-decree must be strengthened by expanding enforcement against gillnets and illegal electric shock fishing methods. These are the main issues.”

On the afternoon of 27 April, the Prime Minister repealed Sub-Decree 47 on the designation of the Mekong River Dolphin Management Area, which was signed on 27 February 2023, and re-implemented Sub-Decree 155 on the re-establishment of the Mekong River Dolphin Management and Protection Zone from 25 September 2012.

He reiterated that reform is needed since the decisions made may not have been the correct ones, saying, “The finer points of the decree are not perfect! Some are right, some are wrong. If we see something is ineffective then we correct it. It’s called reform.”

On 19 April, the Fisheries Administration called on fishermen to immediately stop using nets, fishing rods and other illegal fishing gear in the dolphin conservation area, following the discovery of a dead male dolphin calf in Kratie's Prek Prosop district. During the autopsy, the team concluded that the dolphin calf had died after getting tangled in a fishing net.

The Fisheries Administration and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) determined that the dead dolphin weighed around 10 kilograms, was 0.87 meters long and was only four days old.

^{PHOTO: WWF}