Stake trap or fish corral (no sao) is one of the most popular fishing gears for local fisherfolk, representing 23% of total fishing gears used in the lagoon.

The unplanned and uncontrolled installation of stake traps into the lagoon water resulted in excessive number and density of traps in the water. As a consequence, these fishing gears caused poor circulation within the water mass and build-up of pollutants, especially from the aquaculture ponds. At the same time, small mesh size (about 4-6 mm) of currently installed stake traps indiscriminately catches adult and juvenile fishes, becoming one of the causes of fish population decline.

Although the issue of too many and densely populated stake traps became obvious in recent years, the overall status of fishing gears (i.e., units installed, size, direction, owners, etc.) was not clearly understood, and it became a bottle-neck for the resource management planning.

To promote the better understanding of the stake trap situation in the lagoon, the IMOLA Project has been providing technical support to commune and district governments, in consultation with gear's owners, to map out the existing arrangement in the lagoon water with GPS. As an experimental model, this task was undertaken for the Cau Hai Lagoon involving six major communes, namely Loc Dien, Phu Loc town, Loc Tri, Loc Binh, Vinh Hien, and Vinh Giang, as well as the Phu Loc district. Location of all stake traps were recorded and stored in the IMOLA geo-database, together with the names of stake trap owners.

Upon request from communes, the IMOLA team also prepared several plans for stake trap rearrangement for each commune, based on their permitted size and distance, stipulated coastal buffer zones, and boat navigation routes regulated by the Province and the District. The stake trap rearrangement plan was finalized by the commune authority through the discussion with the owners, and finally implemented in 2007-2008 with technical assistance from the IMOLA.

[Click on the map to enlarge]
Before	Plan	After

In the entire mapping and rearrangement process, capacity was constantly built at the commune level as to how to map and check the location of stake traps with GPS. This would help the commune, local fisherfolk, and authorities to monitor the stake trap situation in the future to prevent any deviation from the agreed-upon layout.