Story | 18 Oct, 2023

Report on the state of the Gulf of Mottama

Since 2015, IUCN and the Network Activities Group (NAG) have been part of a HELVETAS-led consortium implementing the SDC Gulf of Mottama Project. The project supports sustainable natural resource management in one of the world’s largest areas of turbid water. Nourished by four large rivers, sediment is constantly being remobilized, eroded, and deposited. Large areas of mud flats rapidly emerge and disappear.

Photo: Rice farmers at work © GOMP

In addition to an extremely dynamic physical environment, the 1.6 million people who live in the six townships adjacent to the gulf faces major human challenges: high levels of poverty and natural resource dependence, high levels of inward and outward migration, and since the coup in February 2021 growing social fragmentation.

To assess the results of eight years of work, the consortium commissioned a report synthesizing what has been learned and to provide the evidence base for the last two years of the project. The report was written by Dr. Tara Whitty, a marine scientist who served as the project’s international advisor in 2016-2019 based in Mawlamyine.

For the report, see LINK