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River Awareness Kit (01/02/05)

Good Afternoon CEPA people:

The 4,800 Km Mekong River, the longest river in Asia, is the subject of a challenging programme of work being administered through the Mekong River Commission (MRC) The Commission has been set up through a formal agreement between the four riparian countries, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam that aims to ensure the sustainable development of the Lower Mekong basin. The basin is both home and a vital source of natural resources for 60 million people from more than 100 different ethnic groups, most of whom are rural farmer/fishers.

There are many outputs from the work of the MRC that are helping to ensure the future sustainable management of the Mekong Basin that you can access from their Web site but these materials often have broader utility too either directly, or indirectly as models for people working towards sustainable development in other wetland environments and other regions of the world. Here's one output that falls into this category:

The Mekong River Awareness Kit (RAK): I've recently been given a copy of this CD-ROM, a user-friendly, multi-media and interactive self-learning training tool. It's designed to help increase awareness about the ecology of the Mekong River system in relation to MRC's objectives of water resource management, livelihoods, and sustainable development. Its target audience includes decision makers and those involved in providing advice and information for the formulation of basin policy and legislation - this includes members of the MRC itself as well as National Mekong Committee staff, and government agencies in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam. It's been designed as an educational resource for staff with little or no background in ecology, and is intended not only to strengthen their technical capacities, but also to ensure a holistic understanding of the ecology of the Mekong River. It covers basic concepts such as the linkages between land and water, upstream and downstream, wet and dry seasons - awareness of these is critical to understanding the relationship between people and the river. It looks too at the basics of river science, covering the physical world, the living world and the relationship between people and the river, and gives readers the opportunity to learn more and ask questions of experts on the Mekong through their on-line helpline.

I have spent some time 'playing' with the CD-ROM and can confirm that it is indeed user-friendly and interactive. Not only did I come away with plenty of relevant information about how the river functions delivered at a fairly simple level, it also maintained my interest with a few interactive tricks to keep me amused. And now the bad news - you have to buy a copy if you want to have a look at it! You can do this here (with my apologies for the extremely long URL!) http://www.mrcmekong.org/shopping/productsByCategory.asp?intCatalogID=1&
strCatalog_NAME=The+Mekong+River+Basin. It is, however, only US 10.00. You can read an independent review of the CD-ROM here http://www.adbi.org/cdrom-review/2003/08/27/31.mekong.river.awareness.ki
t..rak./full.review/.

For further information on the CD-ROM, please contact Ian Campbell at campbell@mrcmekong.org.

Best wishes, Sandra Hails, Ramsar Secretariat

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Sandra Hails, CEPA Programme Officer
Ramsar Convention Secretariat
Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 999 0176; Fax: +41 22 999 0169
E-mail: hails@ramsar.org
Web Site: http://ramsar.org
CEPA mini-Web site: http://ramsar.org/outreach_index.htm

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