 Our next session for this morning is entitled, Mekong Perspectives on Climate Change. I would like to invite Dr. John Doar, lead advisor for the Mekong Australia Partnership, Water Energy and Climate to introduce our panel. Okay, thank you and good morning everybody. As just announced, you know that this session is more than just perspectives, it's perspectives of Mekong citizens on building resilience to climate change. So, joining me here this morning, we have Un. Mr. Un Hoon is a young man from Lao PDR with a Master's Degree in International Development Studies, focusing on, oh, clearly Un has some support in the crowd. Un's Master's focused on livelihood, adaptation, rural development and resettlement in Lao. Un used to work as a coordinator for the INGO network to promote and strengthen collaboration between and among CSOs and different parts of the Lao government. For some years now, I'm very happy to say, he's been a highly respected member of the team at the Australian Embassy in Vienn Chiang. So welcome, Un. No need to clap again. Okay, also joining me this morning is Dr. Suttat. Dr. Suttat is the former director of Thailand's, what a wonderfully polite audience. Dr. Suttat, as I said, former director of the Hydroinformatics Institute under the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation and a member of the ASEAN Hydroinformatics Data Center. Now, Dr. Suttat is a very highly respected professional who throughout his career of relevance to this session has been contributing greatly to building understanding and cooperation within Thailand but also within the Mekong region and with other ASEAN member countries. So welcome, Dr. Suttat. Professor Xu Janshu, Janshu, thank you. Janshu is another very accomplished scientist based in Kunming, who is also very practical and has done a great job in contributing to regional and international cooperation. Janshu is an ethno-botanist working on land systems across the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. He has a very strong background in interdisciplinary research on landscape restoration, agroforestry systems and circular agriculture. Glad you can join us, Janshu. And finally, Sochita Sim from Cambodia. Sochita is also a very accomplished and determined Cambodian civil society leader and an alumni of universities of Phnom Penh, Geneva and Melbourne. Sochita manages the Oxfam Mekong regional water governance program. She's interested in, these are my notes, not hers. I perceive her to be interested in all of the dimensions of the IPCC but I expect she takes particular interest in climate change impacts on public health, gender equality, social inclusion and risks to vulnerable communities. So welcome, Sochita. It's noted that Sochita got two rounds of applause and you gentlemen only one. All right, really, it's my pleasure to sort of be, have these guests with us today. So let's get going. So, Un, you've listened to scientists this morning. What are your perspectives on building resilience to climate change? What are you seeing? What are you thinking? Thank you. Thank you very much, John, for the kind introduction. And actually, thank you very much to SCI for the invitation to speak today. For this special particular session, I will be speaking as one of the Mekong citizen. I'm not representing my employer or any government. So I'd like to start from the Mekong commitment at recent COP meeting. It was highlighted this morning by delegation from Thailand that the Mekong government have made high political commitment at the COP meeting and same for other countries in the region. So with that, I'd like also to start with that this Mekong region collectively is not the biggest event of CO2. But yet, because we are in the same planet with other region, we are also vulnerable to climate change. I'd like to remind the audience that in just last five years, this region faced significant climate hazards. For example, in 2018, the region was experiencing extremely flooding. But a year after that, in 2019 and 2020, this same region faced severe drought. You know, the Mekong was at its lowest in five decades. And just earlier this year, this same region, John, faced heat wave and very bad air pollution. So I'd like to just remind people and these three even alone cause massive economic impact to this region. With that in mind, the government in this region, particularly under the framework of Mekong River Commission, they met recently in Vientiane in April this year. They have acknowledged that this is a threat coming to this region, a threat to economy, a threat to food security, biodiversity, and livelihoods of many millions. It was also highlighted this morning by many speakers. So the interesting part is how Mekong countries will aim or will implement the actions to achieve the ambitious target to achieve natural emission that they have made at COP meeting. And this varied because different countries has different potential, different development priorities, right? Leave it with that. I'd like to move one layer down to Mekong River Commission. The MRC secretariat has been tasked by its leaders, leaders of Mekong countries to implement, to actually accelerate climate actions, to look into risk and opportunity facing this region. And we heard from Mr. Sofelin yesterday that the secretariat is actually implementing a number of climate actions. For example, it's trying to strengthen its flood and drought forecasting capability so that it can better serve the member countries. The joint study with upper riparian countries to study the change in patterns of hydrological conditions and adaptation strategies to proactive regional planning to look into different options of water energy integration. So that's MRC. Now I'd like to spend a few minutes to speak about Laos, which is the country where I'm from. The government is well aware of the climate change and the impact. And in fact, the country has been hit by several hardships recently. Just earlier, just last month, the central part of Laos was flooded and experienced severe landslide, causing massive impact. With that, the government has put in place several strategies, climate-sensitive strategies and policies. I'd like to remind a few. The National So-so Economic Development Plan, the green growth strategies, the national climate change strategies. All these key strategies highlight the importance of building resilience, focusing on green infrastructure and reducing disaster reduction. So with assistance from different stakeholders and many of you are in this room, the government has taken action to implement a lot of mitigation and adaptation activities in different sectors, in forestry sector, agriculture, in water sector. It was also highlighted by representatives from Laos Women's Union yesterday that they are also implementing a lot of activities, particularly in forest sector. Now, I think Laos is in the interesting transition period. The image you see behind me shows that we are moving, we are taking climate actions quite seriously in partnership with different stakeholders, particularly private sector. And I'd like to highlight two sectors here. In energy sector, you may have heard that just last month, Laos has started constructing the first wind power project and the largest one in Southeast Asia with over 600 megawatt. And there is a series of talks to expand that project recently. So I think for me, that kind of actions is related to the presentation made by one of the professors this morning. It's one of the climate medication. It is climate friendly infrastructure, right? The country, Laos, is also looking at the other energy options, working with different stakeholders, including Australia, to look at palm hydropower storage, to look at solar, also hydrogen. So I think Laos recognized the climate change to its hydropower sector, which is the main source of energy for now, and start to look for options, which is quite a good move from my perspective. Now on transportation sector, the image you see is Laochina Railway. It has started operation for almost two years now. And the statistic I see in terms of transportation of passengers and goods and cargo is massive. Speaking about passengers alone, the infrastructure has transported more than 14 million passengers in nearly two years. So that's... Including Jiang Chu? Yes, that's very massive. Imagine if you were to transport that big number of passengers by the conventional mode of transportation, by bus, individual cars, flights. That's gonna burn massive, massive amount of fuel, fossil fuels, right? So I think Laos is in an interesting period with major infrastructure being developed to address climate crisis. The government is also promoting the EV with the aim to reach about 30% by 2030. And if you go to major cities in Laos now, you start to see a lot of EV cars on the road. So that's quite good, but the infrastructure, the charging station, is still limited. If it gets expanded, I think more people will start to use EVs, given that the petrol price in Laos is really high at the moment. Just this morning, it get increased again. So there's a lot of information there. I'd like to end by saying that the Mekong countries acknowledge that the climate change is real. It's actually happening now, not in the far future, and therefore start to take action quite seriously. You know, we thank partners from far and near, near and far to support our region because we alone cannot address these global issues, right? So with that, I'd like to echo the discussion we had yesterday and also presentation by the scientists this morning that we need cooperation, we need funding, we need scientists like many of you here, we need new knowledge to help us achieve the climate targets. The other thing which is very important is that, given that majority of the population in this region rely a lot on water and land for their livelihoods and incomes, we need to pay more attention to those people. We need more investment in them. We need to include them more to be able to achieve equitable sustainable development. Thank you, John. Thank you, Woon. Woon received his invitation to speak about two days ago, I think. But yeah, points really well made, Woon, and thank you for that, both the showing what's happening in Laos and also reminding where there's significant attention required. While I've got you, so ASEAN chairmanship next year is climate, how do you expect climate resilience will feature or not on the agenda of Laos as it sort of sets the agenda with the ASEAN member countries? So just last two weeks, our Laos Prime Minister attend ASEAN summits in Indonesia and assume chairmanship for next year, 2024. At this stage, we don't have much information in terms of the kinds of priorities that the government as a chair of ASEAN will drive. But from the speech of the Prime Minister, he wants to continue the good legacy by Indonesia, which is to build better and resilient ASEAN. So I think that's a good start, right? For many of us here working in water energy issues and environment issues to have the resilient in the teams. But I know that many of the stakeholders here are ready and working with some of your Laos government counterparts, including Australia, we also preparing itself to support the government of Laos. I think it will be very well received by the government. And in fact, just in next month, Australia together with Vietnam and ASEAN will host the high level dialogue on energy and climate in Hanoi. So that's one of the activities in the lead up to the ASEAN chair of Laos. Okay, thanks, Un. So just a reminder of this connectivity of the region that Un emphasized at the beginning. For those that are familiar with the Monsoon project, you know, Laos project exporting to Vietnam, where did the blades come from? Probably from China, not sure. Finance from Thailand and Japan, legal services from Singapore. It's a really multi-country sort of effort and something that Laos is leading. And we hope it's a very successful sort of initiative. Thanks, Un. Dr. Suthat, and before I go to Dr. Suthat, I just let you know that everyone here is very different. Very different perspectives. And we're not gonna cover all of the Macong region and every possible perspective. My friends have just been invited to sort of put a few remarks out there, but everybody in the room has their perspective. Dr. Suthat, what are yours, sir? What would you like to share with us? Thank you, John. So I would like to share the hydroinformatics perspective on the recorded data and the future prediction for the precipitation and the indexes. Thailand has four tributaries in the Macong region, as shown in the figures. The data or precipitation for 40 years show anomaly in the high value, show in the green colors, and the less than the anomaly show in the orange colors. This is the first two tributaries. We can draw the discussion that the peak value has increased. As you show, see in the green colors, starting from year 2000, it starts to grow around 10% increasing in North Kong and Northern Kong. And the second finding is the dry spell, the characteristic of dry spell, which is consecutive three to four years to exist before 2000 and after year 2008. In Thailand, people afraid of droughts compiling to fact in the local communities. The last two big subtleties in Chi and Moon contribute the same for the increasing annual rainfall by 20 and even higher for 30%. And the dry spell is still persisting before year 2000 and after year 2000. This is the data from hydroinformatics to provide the direction of development and adaptation in Mekong. For the future trimates, we use a 19 CMITS-5 and with the bias correction methodologies and two RCPs, and the time scale is from near future, medium future and far future as the standard point. I represent only four selected indicators. The first one is the drought, which is consecutive dry days. Every, in the annual basis, there are around two months, 65 days. And as you can see, that increment will be up to 40%, increasing all perspective. So it means that from two months, it will increase to three months. For the consecutive fifth days, it keeps increasing. Or see, this is the good news, but with the less magnitude. So 27 days, it will increase around 30% of this. This is good news. And the last two indicators show that maximum rainfall at X5 day will be reduced. This is good because the extreme event will reduce and the annual precipitation will reduce also. They have both opportunities and adverse impact on the available water physically, according to the IPCCs. And the data shows to support Mr. Undet in 2018, you have more positive anomaly and suddenly next year you have negative anomalies. This is the results of the hydroinformatics for present and future. So I shouldn't ask whether you were surprised. I mean, the science and the data is what the science and the data is, but how are you planning as a person who's been working in hydroinformatics across the Mekong for your career, how do you sort of put this anticipation of change into sort of action going forward? Yes. Thank you, John. This information will be delivered to the local people in the community level. So they will use to have the direction of development. First and the second, how to cope with this change because we don't know really when it will occur. So we use technology with the web and application. In Thailand, we use Thai water, which gives you hourly data for 3,000 telemetering stations and the daily data of the dams. And community will use this information not only for the science technology in the blue one, but people should be trained to know themselves, the capacity and capability, and even inspire themselves using the red one, which is sufficiency, economy, philosophy. So if two components can merge together, then the SDG will be achieved. We experienced this for 10 years. We proved all the concepts, a lot of community. They need to do assignment like a student in the universities to show participation. They have different techniques to work with dams. I have two examples in the Mekong Thibu Therese. One is in Konkang in the Weng Noi province. Rainfall is only less than the average, only 900 millimeters. The area that we choose is suffer from drought and flood for long times. So we work with them and the ownership of the data and solution is with the community. This is to manage the water for 21 meters head difference. You can see in the block is the 223 on the right side and 202 on the left side. And you can see a lot of storage because people know that as well as four years. So they need to have storage for four years. They know before we tell them, but we can tell them that it will increase more. It will be pronounced by 30%. So on the right side, you can see outcome is not only the water, but it is the SDG for food security expansion to seven sub districts. And they can do expand by themselves because everyone would like to show their success in their areas. The last example is the Ba Lim Tongs in Thailand. Ba Lim Tong is in Buli Lam. We call it, you need to punch water to drink because it's very difficult to get the water. Within Thailand, we call Buli Lam Tung Nam Gin. So we work with them and because of topography, you can see that we have the small storage collected from the road. So it is multi function of the road and collect the water in the storage. There are more than 100 storage, different sizing and everything managed by gravity by the people. So this is the example of equation that we use in the sufficient economy, philosophy, plus scientific regime equal to the SDG. SDG. We got around SDG achievement from about half of them. So this is the proof already. Thank you, Dr. Sutat. So for me, I've never seen that framework that you showed before. Can you just flip back to that quickly? Back one. So, sufficiency, economy, philosophy, science and technology, SDGs. I mean, to me, that's new thinking for me this morning. But in terms of then the next examples, so does that give you some optimism? I think it was Tariq asked a question this morning as to, oh, you know, it can all be bad news if you only listen for bad news, but you're seeing some positive proactive climate adaptation. Is that so? And of the hydro informatics scientists connecting well with the community groups, how are you saying it? Yes, hydro informatics will be on the blue one, the science technology, but in our institute, we have weeks, different kind of people. We can communicate with the local community. We can communicate with them, not in the government world, but in the local world. So they understand. So you are right, we need to inspire them and showing their successful case. I think it is one of the key as the professor said that the case study and you need to change the people also. And this is one of the important variables in the solving of the climate change. Thanks, Dr. Sutard. We probably should move on, but welcome your appreciation. But again, following the previous panel, and I think when we were starting to sort of organize this meeting, we were really looking for the different scientists of the region who'd been in the IPCC. So your point's well taken that I think moving forward, there's a lot of other case material, whether it's hard science or quantitative or whatever else, but there is a lot of experience and hopefully HII and others can be contributing to that going forward. But thank you. So we'll keep rolling. And Janshu, please, you're leading the Mountain Institute initiative based in Kunming. You're also an author in the recent Hindu Kushimalaer assessment coordinated by Isimod in Kathmandu for those that know it. We're quite interested in your perspectives and what is happening in the Mekong region mountains and how can Mekong societies adapt? What are you thinking? What would you like to share with us? Okay, and before I comment, can I have the video? Get ready for some high ten. Two minutes. Human civilization started with agriculture. Without agriculture today, we cannot have a bigger population, bigger organization. We are expanding agriculture at the cost of nature or forest or water or land or glass land or water land. In the future, how are we going to solve the challenge of a population close? Human food and nutrition, not also pro-technical. So, agriculture is a key for our human future. Now, look at the division, lullo and urban. That's the digital division between lullo and urban. Urban people will have mobile phones. They enjoy the modern life. That's why urban attract a lot of people because of the money, job, new technology. How we stimulate economic growth with a sustainable way, we have to look at the lullo side or agriculture. So, brick is a typical example. We have a huge lullo area, lullo population, and a lot of people are still living in poverty. So, digitalization or digital agriculture will change the scenario. We're going to have a low carbon and contribute less to greenhouse gas emissions. We have more protect, manage the conflicts between wildlife and the human and the agricultural. Now, we're going to protect more forest by managing the agricultural land forest and the better. And then we're going to have more intensive farming, bring more agricultural efficiency, use less land, produce more food. Yeah, thank you. And I just like to say, in addition to climate change, we have another challenge, the division between lullo and urban. How we're going to bridge the gap between the knowledge and also the economic growth between lullo and urban. So, I like to bring different angle, what's the opportunity to bring with through the digital technology. So, everyone know the agriculture together as a lullo land use contribute 25 quarter to greenhouse gas emission at the total level. And, but look at the Asia region, there's a diversity of farming system. So farming, I started with learning shifting cultivation, the smallholder to manage the upland in the rural area of the Mekong region, the particular upstream. And also now also we have rice terraces and also, and now a lot of area designate as the global important the agricultural heritage site, the protection area and the traditional farming system. Then we manage actually farm, manage a very diverse landscape, home garden, orchard and also the agricultural system with really bring nature into agricultural land. Then our modern agriculture was a machinery heavy as a energy driven and the fuel and the coal. So that's contribute to larger share of all lion share for greenhouse gas emission. Then what's the future lullo, agricultural landscape like looks like. So digitalization is opportunity to bring everything in the tool. So I'd like to comment you and the slew the four question. First, do we have a clear signal for climate change? Yeah, we heard from Laos and from Thailand. As the answer is clear, yes, but the different area have different signal. So my mountain future based in Honho, upstream of the river is a very famous honey rice terraces area. In past the 30 years and my team did just did the recent work. So temperature increase 2.9 centigrade degree much above as a global average. And the rainfall reduced and the your area summer area increased 30%. We reduce the 296 millimeter in past 30 years. So we'll get the less water. But this year, my mountain future side suddenly we get the flash floods. And within three hours, I get almost 300 millimeter rainfall, fairly intense rainfall. But the main project side is tropical savannah type. And the annual rainfall only about 700 millimeter. So one event bring half a year for rainfall. So that's the extreme we're facing. So how are we going to dealing with too much and the too little water in one location? That's the challenge. And my second question, yes, how can we find out the signal for climate change or coping with climate and risk? So I like to say it's action, we need it today, we need it to take a now and then we need to bring nature into our heart. How today's mobile phone technology, artificial intelligent internet. So before I come to Thailand, I can really look at the water type or next day rainfall through the internet. So that's today's world. We're all connected. How really bring nature into your heart, in your mind, in daily action to understand what's upstream farmer, what's they're doing and the words. So that's digital technology it's about. That's artificial technology about. So we create a world, a sort of nature. So nature is totally from a first nature. So first nature, human are part of ecosystem. Human are bounded by a natural ecosystem. Farmer travel only 10 kilometer within water shape. Now today's nature is different. We work on second nature and we totally forgot nature. We don't know how much temperature outside the building because we're living in the isolated nature with air condition. And there's a future nature. It's really you need to think about and any moment, any decision, any knowledge, you need to bring nature in your mind in your heart, in your daily action. So that's our little comments. How you fear interacts with nature. Just one question. I'm struggling with, I can see and witness and imagine people that have nature in their heart. But that's not what I connect to when I see digitalization and AI and the start of your movie, which is, it's exciting, but I don't see the heart part. So I'm coming to that. I think now, and back to ugly culture, since we contribute 25% of a greenhouse gas emission, can we have carbon neutral ugly culture? So that's the big challenge. And now we produce not only produce food for fiber, but also rubber and the other industry crop. And so the question is really, how carbon neutral world come along with the ugly culture or rural landscape? First, we need a smarter seeds. The smarter seeds, the seeds today, we need a different, we need to copy what's dropped. We need to have a warmer, hot environment and the seeds can survive and can germinate and can produce. And again, that's today's new bleeding technology with artificial intelligence. And again, the second, we need a smart product. Now we produce cotton. My demonstration produce not the traditional cotton in your club. We produce a couple of trees. So fiber from couple tree was a pioneer and glowing with the carbon sink. So, and without water and can survive, can have it. We have a job at the couple and fairly nicely planted in earlier. So smart products are very important, a cotton example. The third one is a smart system. Say for instance, ugly forestry, the circular culture. When we get the nothing waste, nothing in the through the circular and then we get the close to carbon neutral and the system, that's very important. Finally, I like to say we need a smart value chain. The smart farmer, if we don't have a smarter consumer and you cannot have carbon neutral world. So we need a smart value chain with link smart farmer with a smart consumer with everyone think about the nature. So that's I like to say, that's a potential for agricultural sector. Finally, I like to say, can we have a better or quality life with the hot climate? The answer I say yes, because you know, how we're going to achieve that we need a better relation. So we needed to change the way of engagement. Engagement with nature, with the people, particular young generation because we need to understand how young generation think. What does they want? What does they eat? So engage public young generation another way of changing the relationship. And as a third, we need also what's called engage. We need a new relationship with the new technology to make a shoe or a producer or a consumer with equipped new technology like a smartphone and the same RT technology. Finally, we need to think about the future. And again, can we have a zero distinction of wildlife? Allow the elephant travel from Cizambana of 1,019 to claiming to attend our COP meeting to deliver the global biodiversity framework. So thanks. Yeah, that's my comments. Thank you, Jun Shu. I'm still imagining the elephant on the way to the COP. Okay, Jun Shu is one of the more active people I've met in my life. And I know partly what you've been doing for the last 30 years. I think he's just mapped out an agenda for agriculture which will keep him busy for the next 30. So a lot of interesting points in there are the different signals that Lao and Thailand and your big research site in the Hong He. It's just a good reminder of the way the impacts are so geographically specific, if you like. I sit here and when people talk about, we only have 900 millimeters of rainfall. I mean, where I live, we're very happy if we get 500 a year, really happy. So it's very relative. And I also listened to Jun Shu then talk about, can we live with heat, extra heat? I don't know, I hope so. But Jun Bin is talking this afternoon in the urban resilience sort of session. And we do know that we can make our cities, we can design our cities better. And we can have more shade and we can have more water sensitivity in a lot of actions that way. So are you optimistic? And then we'll, a quick answer to that. And then we go to Sochita. Are you optimistic? Of course, and now, by the way, I'm designing my vernacular architecture building and I can cope with the heat wave. So I can live comfortably without the aircon and then in a very hot climate. I'm coming to visit. Thank you very much, Jun Shu. Sochita, kept you waiting, wondering what your sort of thinking about what you've been hearing from the colleagues that have preceded you. But if you don't want to comment on that, that's also fine. What are the sorts of points that you would like to sort of share with the room, please? Thank you, John. And good morning, everyone. I have observed that the discussion today is very fascinating. Moving from this morning panel where we see a lot of facts. At first, it scares us. But then I think the panel this morning leave us with possible solution that we can do together. I am not a scientific in any way. John kindly introduced me earlier. I'm coming from a very ground experience. And I hear from Un and Professor Dr. Sutard and our colleagues, the stories, the facts that have shared resonate. Resonate to what happened in Cambodia with the community that we work with. But I think the important point that I just want to make really short is that every degree of climate that increase, the risk for the community, for the people. And it's not that we need to slow down. We need to put our feet on the break so that we have a chance to build a resilient capacity of the community. I think that the risk that present to us come much faster than the capacity of the people to adapt. So I think that we have a very big task from where we are, from what we are doing. We have a very big task on how we chip in our contribution to build that resilient capacity. That is a very big task. And we have heard various examples of how that has been done. And I think it's really important to work in collaboration with different stakeholders because at the end of the day, we have one common voice, one common goals. We don't want to live in a warmer climate. I think we have to adapt to live in a warmer climate. Definitely for myself. But how we can pull the efforts together, that would be the key. So Cheetah, you have a regional role, but first you're a citizen of Cambodia. What are you seeing in terms of adaptation that gives you some cause for optimism? Where are the places you've been in the last little while that left you feeling a little bit inspired? The place I have been for a little while, I have you with me for a little while. But just to put the joke aside, I think that, yeah, maybe just to draw your attention to the picture that you see on the slide. For Cambodia, our economy linked very closely to the river systems. We have the Mekong, we have the Great Lake. This interconnection of the river system are very key for, first and foremost, is the freshwater fishery productivity that contribute to our GDP. We rely on agriculture sector and based on the estimation from the government, every degree of climate that increase have impact to about 10% of rice production. So we are feeling this impact very strongly. I think Cambodia as a country in the Mekong experienced both too much water at times and also very little water. The prolonged drought that we experienced have hugely impact to agriculture sector, to water security, and also the ability of the people to adapt. We have a very fast growing urban area, which means that demand for energy is increased. I will not talk more on this because we have a session in the afternoon that look into the energy, but just to recognize that in the urban area, both fast growing energy consumption, but we have the vulnerability when extreme rainfall happens. As you see in the third picture, the city significantly slowed down as I was preparing for this. I was going through an article and one lady who have been residing in Phnom Penh as a seamstress described to the reporter how each time the city flat it impact on her ability to do the work that she's doing. So different population with different income have failed with the impact. So the task in front of us is how we, what we do to help reuse those impact and make the community, make the people have the ability and more resilient. If the river is now having a water flow that is not regular as before, it makes the farmer unable to grow their river bank garden as before. So what do we do to support, because their livelihood will depend on river bank gardens, their livelihood will depend on the fish catch. Now the fish has declined because water is really low. The Thun Le Sap Lake in Cambodia have suffered both from variable flows of the river but also the extreme climate and it make the fish die in massive number because the temperature of the water rising, it make the flooded forest fire and this destroy the spawning ground for the fish. So fishers suffer activities, economic activity that rely on fishery is suffering. How we make decision that will not exacerbate those trends but help to address what the local people are facing and how we can build further capacity of the people to be more resilient. You can see some of the example. I think that has happened if river bank gardens no longer be possible or very risky for the people to depend on, could we maybe have some intervention that help river in community grow vegetable in different way as the picture in the last on the right is showing. So those are I think some of the important intervention and capacity that different actor need to promote more to ensure that community have more capacity to adapt because as I mentioned earlier, the risk is increased much faster than the ability of the people to adapt. Thanks Achita. I mean, to me, you are a very good integrator, you know? I mean, there's the, I mean, as Achita speaks about Tonle Sap, I know that Mr. Sopper and I won't ask you to comment now, but you know, recent MRC work backs up, you know that whole change in the flood pulse at Tonle Sap. You know, this is not speculation or one year. This is a changing system. Dr. Soutat is, you know, providing another piece of the puzzle, but I think Sochita has sort of mentioned a few of the other signals, you know, that are just as relevant that the seamstress can't work or, you know, are, but are the positive signals perhaps that this lady who I've never met, Duong, you know, is also then moving forward. And I don't know how that opportunity is created, but I hope there's thousands of opportunities like it. What Sochita did mention about, oh, we just met previously is that along with other sort of first nations and indigenous representatives from around the world, they basically made and saying is here in the room, made a very big impact at the World Water Week, both last year and this year, the home of Stockholm Environment Institute, but it was a very interesting influence on what is traditionally a very techy sort of forum. So well done on that. Ajahn Surachai mentioned Sochita, that bit of a challenge across the region for in his stronger words, bit of democratic backsliding and whatever else, how hard is it getting harder or easier for you in your role, a regional role with Oxfam to sort of have these high quality discussions and influence the way in which conversations are held in the Mekong countries without putting you on the spot to be too specific. Thank you. Certainly I was very interested in the remark of our speakers this morning and couldn't agree more that space for operate in the region have shifting, I would not say close or open, like it is shifting. So as someone working in this space, I think we need to be able to adapt and how we will not be making a conclusion to some point because it is open and close or shifting is based on our relationship and how we conduct the discussion. So for example, I think in the region, my country included, we just have a new government and there are various perspective about how to engage with the new government. But I think that when we look at the strategic priority in the government, for example, in relation to coping with climate change and the resilience, it has been put as the one of the pillar for the new government. So as a Opsman or as a civil society actor, how do we prepare to engage and be on a strategic priority that government already put out? And definitely I think from civil society actor, from researcher, from science, we have different angle that we want to advance. So how do we put our agenda that contribute to those already in the plan of the government? Definitely we need to focus on priorities and the needs, but I would strongly point out that in this regard, the important aspects of inclusion of equity, especially for those who are most marginalized, the poor, the women, the people with disability or indigenous people that have greatly suffer from the current impact, they should be and need to be front and center in the way in which we frame the discussion, in the way in which we develop the strategy or intervention or even build the capacity for them and their organization to be able to be more resilient in this. Because I think we have, to me, we have no other choice. We have to live with it, how we adapt and how we help the people to be more resilient in coping with it every day. Please join me in thanking Sochita for her Mekong perspective. So ladies and gentlemen, we're not gonna go and sort of take up all the lunchtime and very sorry that we haven't had a 30 minute chat with the floor, but the time just doesn't allow for that. So I think that just recalling, we have heard from Un, giving us quite the lower perspective and we appreciate that very much. Dr. Sutat, Hydroinformatics, Jun Xu, a very, I don't know, wild? I'm not sure the right word, but you know, big picture of what could happen with agriculture and Sochita I think has just reminded us of the need not just for climate adaptation, but for political adaptation. And I think that goes for anyone who calls himself as a scientist as well. If we even look at the title of the event, you know, what is it? Bridging science, policy and practice. That's fine, but to do that, one needs to be thinking politically, you know, as to how to be most effective. So I know that these four people sort of operate within their Mekong polities and are trying to be as effective as they can be. So thank you all for a good morning. I would ask us to put our hands together for our panel and then we'll go to lunch. Thank you so much to our panel. Before we set off to lunch, I have, I invite you to look at our drawing for today for this session, Mekong Perspectives. You will see more of these towards the end of the day. I would like to, Nile. Okay, okay. John, we're gonna allow two burning questions. Yes, two burning questions. Who would like to take the first one? No one, but we just allowed it. Okay, there is, okay. The brave gentleman from the back, please. Do you have a mic? Thank you very much. Just a very quick question. I'm John from the Cambodia Development Results Institute, CDRI, Cambodia. Last week in Phnom Penh, my mom looked into the sky and told me to take the clothes in. I said, no, because according to my Google weather of my phone, it will rain at 4 p.m., but she said, take the clothes in now. And then it rained. So I want to follow up with John's comment on the hat, was it, with the nature, and the hat attached to technologies and AI because I see that this unity here happened because my mom's heart is attached to the nature, but man is attached to technologies, iPhone. So some speakers spoke about the importance of local knowledge, right? And some spoke about technologies, science, data, technology, science, tools and methods, et cetera. So professor from China talked about digitalized agriculture, but I think smart agriculture or digitalized agriculture is very expensive. In many countries in the Mekong region, farmers still do farming in traditional ways. So my question to the panel is what are better ways to increase the unity between the attachment to the nature and the attachment to technologies? How can we not be farmers and science scientists and technologies people work together to increase the synergies of local knowledge and science and technologies, especially in agriculture, in the uncertain times of climate change. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Anyone like to respond? Go. And anyone else with questions, just sort of make yourself visible to one or other of the colleagues. Okay, I think very important to come to a session called Mekong Perspective. What are Mekong Perspective? We need a combination, integrated approach with a mother approach, really link with nature with a young generation link to technology. We need the both, you know. So Mekong Perspective will really look at a traditional farming system farmers living with wealth, with happiness. So that's the philosophy. So if we believe we are resilient, we are adapt and then we adapt. I think that's the first step and then what's the technology we're building new dimension to coping with a new risk. So that's my quick comment. Anyone else there? I see Dr. Soutat and Un. Yes, it's expensive. The cost of investment. Second, you need to join the present technology and local knowledge. We did it at HII and it fit quite well because we listened to the local community and take that variables into the design of water management. And the third one is that yes, if it is young generation in the junior that we work with them, they jump into technology, IOT, directly. And then they just apply with the older people. So it depends on how you blend this. That's why it is not theory, it is the art, how to mix up with this technology, local people and all variables. Thank you. The only thing I would add is that my reaction is we're better as a team than as an individual. So you and your mother are probably a better combination than one of you on your own. Please, others that would like to toss a question or remark, I can always run over time, right? We can roll as long as you like, but welcome any reactions or suggestions. And I see a hand up at the back and I hope that lady, Cynthia, I think it is. I hope she has a mic. And then Gin Sato, welcome by the way. While we're getting Cynthia a microphone, can I just acknowledge Gin Sato, who I haven't seen for 20 years until today? Thank you so much, wonderful panel. And thanks to each and everyone and to the excellent moderation. I wanted to reflect on the fact that people commented on the pessimism, the optimism. We've seen some ways forward. Arguably a few short years ago, we had a lot more reasons for pessimism in relation to climate because we hadn't seen the ability of regions and of the world globally to pivot and to change from individual behavior change to regional policy coordination to global policy coordination. The pandemic for everything it wrought on the world that was terrible, it also showed us that change is possible in a coordinated and rapid way from technology to social systems. But we don't talk about it now. So I wanted to ask the panel just very quickly, what is it that we can draw on, the lessons or the adaptability of their coordination? What is it we can draw on and that we need to put into place now from the pandemic into climate response? Just hold your thought on that and can we get the mic to Gin Sato please in the middle of the room? Okay, John, thank you so much. My name is Gin Sato. I'm a professor at the University of Tokyo in Japan. I haven't seen John for 20 years and I feel like we've been talking about the same, well, this is an interesting event to think about whether, because back in 20 years ago, we were talking about participation, citizen science and all those things. So it's a good thing for me to reflect on whether we've made any progress in the past 20 years. One, I just want to share one thing. I came back from Ubon Ratchatani for my field visit and I visited a flood affected area and people were measuring the depth of Mekong River with the bamboo stick and they're doing it in a different location and they're connecting the information, the statistics by line among the villagers on a voluntary basis. And why do they have to do it? Because the government warning system is not functioning or at least it's not friendly to the villagers. So it's not delivered in a villagers' understandable way. And so I was really impressed by the sort of the, the invention of the citizen science and the statistics that the villagers are putting together on a voluntary basis. But there needs to be a system. So it's not the lack of knowledge or science, but there needs to be a system to connect what the scientists produce and the government produce and what people are doing in a productive way. So it's the mechanism of connection rather than producing more knowledge. And that's something that I learned in Ubon Ratchatani. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jin. And the other thing that's happened in the last 20 years of course is the invention of line, which is a bit of a transformation in communication in Thailand. So Cheetah, in relation to Cynthia's question about the pandemic, what do you think we learned and what do you think could apply now as we're tackling this question? Thank you for the question. I think that if we can draw key takeaway from the period of COVID and lockdown, for me it's that it is possible. And when we change or when the whole society change, how we relate to nature and let the nature grow on its own, then it can replenish. And we can see that with the mobility of the people, not possible and we don't pollute through lots of lines and cars and so on that it's actually make a change and then the earth system can replenish itself. So I think those are, for me it's really key that there is always hope we need to change our behavior and our relation toward nature, toward our environment, to how we build the house or how we, whether we take a taxi from Suvarnabhumi Airport here or take the red line together with other, those little action that we do is actually contributing to the change and contribute not adding more but slowing it down. I just want to maybe link to the last point. I think that the bamboo stick used as a meter pole to measure the water is also the experience that we have in provinces along the Mekong. For us, I think that systems of early warning that may be introduced and already exist by the government needs some works to make it function and serve the purpose. But I think the important point also is that how when we make the intervention, we take into account local knowledge, indigenous peoples knowledge about the ecosystem, about the river that they have been living with for many generations and combine those knowledge together. I think from our speaker earlier when he mentioned about how the information that is shared to the community in a way that community could understand. I think the most important point is we not only generate the information, but information need to be usable by the end user so that they can use that information to make an informed decision whether they have to evacuate or not, whether they have to plan crop or not. And this is important, but it's really difficult. So when we design how we create the platform that co-create and take not only scientific information but also local knowledge to make the design that is Pippon Center and usable. Thank you, Sir Cheetah. I'll get to Dr. Soutat in a minute. But Un, how are people sort of, what are people using in the Namu to sort of measure change? And what would you like to see happen versus what is happening now? So many of you would know Namu which is a basin running from Northern Laos flowing to Mekong Iluang Prabang and there are seven hydropower dams over there. So the flow is no longer natural. It's completely regulated. So I think the communities downstream of those different infrastructure now heavily rely on the notification coming from the hydropower facility because it's really unpredictable unlike the natural force. So that's what happening. And I think colleagues from Ministry of Energy and Mine is here, they are doing pretty good job in terms of making the operators comply to what they need to do. I'd like to actually respond to... Not too long though, please. Okay. Actually, no response. I actually want to question back to a number of scientists here in terms of the lessons learned from the pandemic and how we adapt that into addressing the climate change. You know, when the pandemic happened, the whole world was so panicked with information, with media, right? The question I have to the scientists here is that how do we strike balance between making the world panic? Do we want to make the same level of the pandemic happen? Or do we want to strike balance that this is an ongoing issues, long-term issues that the global citizen needs to react to? I think that's the question back to your scientists. Thank you. It's a great question back. They will not answer now, but I did say Dr. Suttath, what's your reaction to sort of the comment from Professor Jin? Yes. I think it should be the bottom-up approach. If you have successful story, and so for example, people will replicate and replicate themselves. This is the nature. So that's why you should expand before you scale up. But to scale up systematically, we are thinking of how to scale up community water resource management for two years. We try many things, but not successful. We keep thinking of how to scale up the successful story, the bottom-up approach to the top-down and where is the joy that linked together. Thank you. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, this time I really think I should stop or I'll be in trouble. But again, please join me in thanking our panelists.