Tuesday September 5, 2023
VN Express —
Nguyen Van Thom is proud to say that he is sensitive to all the changes in the Mekong, and is sad to say that the river “has lost its rhythm” for the last 20 years.
Thom’s family lived for years near Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake before moving downriver to settle in An Giang Province in southern Vietnam.
When his Cambodian neighbors complained about a drop in fish stocks in 2019 and that the lake’s water was no longer brownish but had turned blue instead, he knew it was bad news since it meant there was little alluvium in the water, and it would be worse downstream.
“There’s a Cambodian saying that where there is water, there is fish. But there is technically no water left in this delta,” the 45-year-old says.