How tourism & fishing help to save Irrawaddy dolphins in Myanmar

The Liv­ing Irrawaddy Dol­phin Pro­ject (LIDP) is a social busi­ness sup­port­ing the pro­tec­tion of Irrawaddy dol­phins in Myanmar’s Aye­yar­wady Dol­phin Pro­tec­ted Area. LIDP is devel­op­ing a mod­el for dol­phin con­ser­va­tion through com­munity-based eco­tour­ism. Co-founder Paul Eshoo wrote this great “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

UPDATE, June 2021: Giv­en the polit­ic­al situ­ation in Myan­mar and COVID-19 “GT” was con­cerned about the fate of LIDP. Promp­ted by “GT”, Mr Eshoo offered the fol­low­ing update to his Janu­ary 2020 “GT” Insight:

There are now less than 80 Irrawaddy dol­phins left in the river. And there are now less than 100 fish­er­men who are skilled in the tra­di­tion­al prac­tice of co-oper­at­ive fish­ing, which requires both dol­phins and fish­er­men to use sig­nals and calls to com­mu­nic­ate with each oth­er in their mutu­al pur­suit of fish.

Due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the com­pound­ing issues of recent polit­ic­al instabil­ity, the Liv­ing Irrawaddy Dol­phin Project’s tours have remained closed since March 2020. This has res­ul­ted in a sig­ni­fic­ant eco­nom­ic impact on the fam­il­ies who nor­mally rely on the pro­ject for sup­ple­ment­al income from tour­ism. The pro­ject has, how­ever, con­tin­ued to sup­port con­ser­va­tion activ­it­ies as best as the COVID-19 lock­downs and polit­ic­al shut­downs have allowed. These include the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of fish­er­ies, patrolling for illeg­al fish­ing in co-oper­a­tion with loc­al com­munit­ies, dis­tri­bu­tion of car­bon-redu­cing cook­stoves, and waste clean-ups in key pub­lic areas along the river.

Recently, to mark the end of what would have been the 2020 – 2021 tour­ist sea­son (which saw no tour­ists) and to provide some relief to affected fam­il­ies for their lost tour­ism income, the Liv­ing Irrawaddy Dol­phin Pro­ject dis­trib­uted the remainder of its funds and dona­tions col­lec­ted for con­ser­va­tion activ­it­ies over the past two tour sea­sons. The money was shared equally among the 165 mem­bers of its eco­tour­ism and sus­tain­able fish­ing and dol­phin con­ser­va­tion groups from sev­en com­munit­ies. Each fam­ily received MMK 20,000 (~ USD 12) to use for house­hold items and food. This is not a lot but as much as the pro­ject could provide. In addi­tion to provid­ing cash, the pro­ject also made no-interest loans of pig­lets to the poorest com­munity mem­bers as a way to provide altern­at­ive live­li­hoods and reduce pres­sure on the river’s resources. Ten fam­il­ies have received a pig­let loan thus far.

The pro­ject is plan­ning to con­tin­ue provid­ing food and oth­er house­hold items in the near future as dona­tions are col­lec­ted, and to make more pig­let loans to more fam­il­ies with the aim of provid­ing one pig­let to every fam­ily. We must do what we can without tour­ism to pro­tect the dol­phins and to help loc­al people. If you are inter­ested in help­ing us help vil­lages in the Aye­yar­wady Dol­phin Pro­tec­ted Area, please make a dona­tion via our web­site. A dona­tion of USD 50 can buy one pig­let, USD 20 one car­bon-redu­cing cook­stove, or USD 15 or more for gen­er­al sup­port to loc­al fam­il­ies for lost tour­ism income. For more inform­a­tion, email us.

Fol­low­ing is the ori­gin­al “GT” Insight from Janu­ary 2020.

Irrawaddy dol­phins are lis­ted as an endangered spe­cies by the Inter­na­tion­al Uni­on for the Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN) with an estim­ated pop­u­la­tion of roughly 6,000 found across Asia. The dol­phins can live in rivers and the ocean and are found mainly in coastal areas. The pop­u­la­tion in Myanmar’s Aye­yar­wady River, from which the dol­phin gets its name (the altern­at­ive “Irrawaddy” spelling), now has less than 80 indi­vidu­als and is con­sidered crit­ic­ally endangered. 

What’s unique about Myanmar’s Irrawaddy dol­phins is their rela­tion­ship with loc­al fish­er­folk. Dol­phins and fish­ers com­mu­nic­ate and fish togeth­er, a prac­tice referred to as “co-oper­at­ive fish­ing”. This does­n’t hap­pen any­where else in Asia. But the tra­di­tion of co-oper­at­ive fish­ing is in jeop­ardy as many fish­ers choose more mod­ern, some­times illeg­al fish­ing meth­ods. Co-oper­at­ive fish­er­folk now num­ber less than 100. 

The Aye­yar­wady Dol­phin Pro­tec­ted Area was cre­ated in 2005. It is Myanmar’s first nation­al aquat­ic pro­tec­ted area and now spans nearly 170km since being exten­ded in 2019. How­ever, threats to dol­phins remain high along the heav­ily pop­u­lated Aye­yar­wady River, which remains one of the country’s most import­ant trans­port ways and fish­er­ies. Threats include elec­tric fish­ing, long-gill nets and drift nets, pol­lu­tion, boat traffic, and siltation. 

As an ini­ti­at­ive of the small tour com­pany Liv­ing Irrawaddy Travel Ser­vices, Chit Htoo Wai and me star­ted the Liv­ing Irrawaddy Dol­phin Pro­ject at the end of 2017. We wanted to help fish­ing com­munit­ies devel­op com­munity-based tour­ism in order to reduce the use of illeg­al fish­ing meth­ods and pro­mote the tra­di­tion of co-oper­at­ive fishing. 

LIDP strives to include as many fish­ing com­munit­ies and fam­il­ies as pos­sible and now works with six com­munit­ies and more than 80 indi­vidu­als. Each com­munity has set up a group for shar­ing the tour­ism work, which includes fish­ing boats to take tour­ists to see the dol­phins and exper­i­ence co-oper­at­ive fish­ing; loc­al food pre­par­a­tion; han­di­crafts; and loc­al guides. The pro­ject has also designed tent accom­mod­a­tion on a river island, which is man­aged by one of the com­munit­ies. We hope to con­tin­ue increas­ing the num­ber of com­munit­ies and fam­il­ies bene­fit­ing from tour­ism as the busi­ness grows. 

After the project’s first tour­ism sea­son in April 2019, the Liv­ing Irrawaddy Dol­phin Pro­ject secured a stretch of the river in co-oper­a­tion with a loc­al fish con­tract­or to man­age the area as a dol­phin-friendly zone. Stricter rules for the area were cre­ated with input from loc­al fish­ers to reduce the use of cer­tain types of nets. In return for fol­low­ing the stricter fish­ing rules, and to incentiv­ise dol­phin con­ser­va­tion, the fish­ers in the area may fish for free. Nor­mally a fee is charged by the fish contractor. 

The pro­ject has since been sup­port­ing com­munit­ies to patrol the area to keep out illeg­al drift nets and elec­tric fish­ing. Fin­an­cial sup­port for this comes from rev­en­ue from the busi­ness. USD 4 per vis­it­or per day is set aside for dol­phin con­ser­va­tion activ­it­ies and patrolling. (Tour pri­cing is USD 125 pp (one day), USD 185 pp (two days), USD 265 pp (three days).)

A social busi­ness, the pro­ject rein­vests rev­en­ue into improv­ing vil­la­gers’ tour­ism skills, includ­ing cook­ing and hygiene train­ing, guid­ing train­ing, han­di­craft design, as well as upgrad­ing a com­munity vis­it­or centre. We also make an effort to be car­bon-neut­ral, set­ting aside USD 1 per day per vis­it­or for car­bon off­set­ting activ­it­ies. And we have become a Trav­elife Part­ner for our com­mit­ment to the environment. 

The efforts of the Liv­ing Irrawaddy Dol­phin Pro­ject can­not pro­tect dol­phins on its own, as that requires the full sup­port of many stake­hold­ers across a large river land­scape. But hope­fully these efforts can set an example, have a pos­it­ive impact, and cre­ate a win-win for com­munit­ies, vis­it­ors, and dolphins. 

Fea­tured image: On the Aye­yar­wady River, Myan­mar, fish­ing with Irrawaddy dol­phins, fish­er­man waits for the right time to cast his net. Image by Andrea Pistolesi.

About the author

Paul Eshoo is a sus­tain­able tour­ism advisor exper­i­enced in devel­op­ing eco­tour­ism pro­grams in South­east Asia and else­where. Paul’s main expert­ise is design­ing tour­ism pro­grams that focus on con­ser­va­tion and redu­cing threats to biodiversity. 

Paul gradu­ated from UC Berke­ley in Polit­ic­al Eco­nomy of Nat­ur­al Resources and was a Peace Corps Volun­teer in Nepal. He helped set up Laos’ first com­munity-based eco­tour­ism pro­ject, the UNESCO Nam Ha Eco­tour­ism Pro­ject, which won the Equat­or Prize in 2006. And he pion­eered WCS’ Nam Nern Night Safari in north­east­ern Laos, which won the World Respons­ible Tour­ism Award for Best Respons­ible Wild­life Exper­i­ence Award in 2013, and the People’s Choice Award in 2014. Paul later became a Wild­life Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety (WCS) region­al con­ser­va­tion ini­ti­at­ives advisor based in Myan­mar from 2014 – 2015. Paul has also served as an eco­tour­ism plan­ner in Cam­bod­ia with the Inter­na­tion­al Crane Found­a­tion; as a tour­ism SME advisor in Viet­nam, Thai­l­and, and China with the Asi­an Devel­op­ment Bank; and as an eco­tour­ism devel­op­ment expert in Sierra Leone with the Roy­al Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Birds.