Focus on Mekong

Drilling new wells to help villagers in Myanmar

When Cyclone Nargis slammed into Myanmar in 2008, one of the minor casualties of the disaster was the destruction of a mangrove forest regeneration project which JICA had launched a year earlier.

Ironically, the catastrophe, in which at least 130,000 persons were killed and huge swathes of the coastal delta were inundated, illustrated in the most dramatic fashion the urgency of that and similar programs.

Mangrove forests throughout the world have been severely depleted and it is only in recent years that the adverse effects have been fully realized – increasingly severe coastal erosion, increased exposure to natural disasters such as Nargis and depletion of natural habitat and fishery stocks.

Experts now believe that thriving mangrove forests would, among other things, reduce the impact of severe natural disasters.

The project, which runs from 2007 through 2013 at a cost of US$7.4 million, has been restarted and is one of many JICA programs in the Mekong region which concentrates on forestry, climate change and water.

Southeast Asia is rich in both resources, bur burgeoning populations, industrial and farming over exploitation are causing major problems in many areas.

JICA projects in Myanmar, Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia emphasize several targets: areas must be reforested wherever possible and existing cover must be developed in a sustainable manner. Local people must be expertly trained to eventually run the projects. The latest technology such as satellite imaging is being employed to develop forest baselines, the potential use of land and ecological potential.

Wherever possible, the Mekong countries are encouraged to cooperate and integrate programs on a regional basis and coordinate their information. Laos, for instance, is establishing a forest resource information center through Japanese grant aid which should provide valuable information on such subjects as capacity development and forest baselines.

Forestry and water often go hand in hand. Near the dramatic ruins of Bagan and only a few miles from the Irrawaddy River, Myanmar's central dry zone has become increasingly hot and denuded of most cover—not good news for the approximately one-third of Myanmar's 59 million population who live in the region.

Helping preserve vital mangrove forests in Myanmar

JICA experts and officials from the government Dry Zone Greening Department recently spent four years recovering some 4,000 acres of bare landscape with 760,000 trees ranging from acacias to eucalyptus to help combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought.

Equally, the agency has helped provide training and advanced technology and techniques to sink dozens of new wells and rehabilitate old ones throughout the region.

In Wetlu village a new well had been sunk to a depth of nearly 300 meters and water was pumping to the surface for some 1,600 villagers. It will help transform their lives, offering them for the first time clean and safe water and saving them many hours per day in transporting water from far away water points.

"Water has always been scarce here," one villager said, as he hastily filled his personal water cart. "Before, we bathed maybe twice a week, to save water. Now we can bathe four times a day if we want to."

The lives of many people in Cambodia are also being slowly transformed. The country's entire water system was virtually destroyed during nearly three decades of conflict and Japan and other international donors have been involved in a series of long-term projects to restore the infrastructure in the capital, Phnom Penh, and regional areas such as Siem Reap, sight of the famed Ankor temple complex.

New plans are now afoot to provide a US$35 million loan to help to construct a new water treatment plant, water mains and sewers to provide safe water to hundreds of thousands of people living on the outskirts of the capital.