The papers included in this volume are drawn from workshops organized by the WorldFish Center in March 1999 and November 2000, which laid the groundwork for the ongoing project, "Legal-Institutional Framework and Economic Valuation of Environment and Resources in the Mekong River Region: A Wetlands Approach." The project is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and implemented by a network of regional and national partners in the four countries of the Lower Mekong Basin. Apart from the contributions by Torell and Salamanca, Du ong Van Ni et al., and H oang Huu Cai, these papers were written in Vietnamese and translated into English by the faculty of the College of Fisheries at the University of Agriculture and Forestry (Nong Lam) in Ho Chi Minh City.