TD organized the regional seminar on Integrated Coastal Resources Management Approach in Southeast Asia: Review on Project ICRM-SV from 26 to 27 January 2010 at Bangkok, Thailand. There are 32 representatives from local people in project site and SEAFDEC member countries as Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Lao PRD, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam attended in this seminar.

In November 2001 under the collaborative project operational arrangement between SEAFDEC/TD and the Department of Fisheries (DOF) of Thailand, the Locally Based Coastal Fishery Management in Pathew District (LBCFM-PD) project was implemented. The knowledge and experiences gained through the first project operation in Thailand was transferred to second project in Langkawi, Malaysia, under the collaborative project operational arrangement with the Department of Fisheries Malaysia and SEAFDEC/TD. The project on Locally Based Coastal Resources Management in Pulau Langkawi (LBCRM-PL) was initiated in August 2003. After the commencement of the project in Malaysia, other countries continued to express interest in initiating a collaborative project with SEAFDEC/TD with regards to the CBRM approach. Cambodia was eventually chosen to implement the third project for various justifiable reasons including the urgency to put in place their newly promulgated Royal Decree on the Establishment of Community Fisheries and the Sub-decree on Community Fisheries Management which were eventually signed on 29 May 2005 and 10 June 2005, respectively. Thus, the preparatory stage commenced in January 2005 and the baseline survey was conducted in March 2005. Based on the findings and information from the survey, the project document was drafted and submitted to the Cambodian authorities in July 2005. However, the actual approval of the project had dragged until November 2005 when the project was officially inaugurated at the project site.

After the start of the project in Cambodia, an additional donor, the Japanese Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia participated in the project operation with a fund contribution in the form of Grass-route Level Fund which was approved in August 2006. This fund was specifically utilized for the mud crab culture activity of the project. The project has progressed towards its goals as regularly reported through the biannual project progress reports and taking the project scope into account its tenure was extended until December 2009. As planned, upon completion of the project operation, its impacts on the target communities and the project achievement in line with the original conceptual goals should be summarized and reviewed with the participation of concerned parties including the representatives from the SEAFDEC Member Countries. This is envisaged so that the lessons and implications derived from the review would be reflected and incorporated in similar project operations not only in the country site but also in other parts of the region.

Hence, this regional seminar on “INTEGRATED COASTAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT APPROACH IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: REVIEW ON PROJECT ICRM-SV would be organized to report on the achievement and outcome of the project during its over 4-year implementation period and review its progress in line with the original project concept, verify the impacts to the beneficiaries from the project’s activities in terms of quantity as well as quality in the light of both facets of community development as well as sustainable coastal fishery resources management and discuss its resultant rationale and implication in the dissemination of the project concept to other SEAFDEC Member Countries.