The main
purpose of these wildlife reserves is to protect and restore a
certain animal/plant species, a critical habitat, and an
ecosystem, or to benefit fisheries through protecting
spawning and nursing grounds or to manage an area as an
extractive reserve (MOE 2002b). Sre Ambel Lagoon,
located in Southwestern Cambodia (Fig. 1), is one of those
marine extractive reserves which were established to
conserve multiple use resources, particularly marine fish
resources. However, limited awareness of the purpose of
conservation and lack of alternative livelihood opportunities
have resulted in continuation of the illegal resource
extraction activities (ADB 1999).