Tonle Fish Initiative is a community-based enterprise launched as a pilot in 2024 to improve local livelihoods, empower women, and safeguard biodiversity in and around Tonle Sap Lake and the Stung Sen Ramsar Site in Cambodia. Since its inception, Tonle Fish has gained recognition for its practical, on-the-ground engagement with floating communities, supporting the co-management of Stung Sen Ramsar Site through the production and marketing of smoked fish that combine cultural traditions with biodiversity-friendly practices.

The initiative has strengthened women’s participation and leadership in conservation while improving household incomes, and it has progressively built wholesale and retail market linkages for community products.

To date, the Tonle Fish Initiative has demonstrated multiple benefits:

• Economic empowerment: creation of local jobs, increased household incomes, and access to higher-value markets.
• Gender equality: support for women-led producer groups, capacity building, and pathways for women’s leadership within floating communities.
• Biodiversity protection: compliance with conservation regulations (e.g. no illegal fishing, hunting, or deforestation), with a portion of profits reinvested to support Community Protected Area (CPA) patrols.
• Health and food safety: improved fish processing through better hygiene equipment, higher standards, and access to clean water.

As its name suggests, Tonle Fish represents fresh, sustainably sourced fish from the natural waters of Tonle Sap Lake and the Stung Sen Ramsar Site. The initiative is managed under the Toul Neang Sav Plov Loung Community Protected Area, a recognized floating community in Phat Sanday Commune, Kampong Svay District, Kampong Thom Province.

With additional financial support from the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP–UNDP), NatureLife Cambodia (NLC) is scaling up the initiative’s production, membership, and marketing as a community-based enterprise.