Overfishing threatens Vietnam’s ancient tradition

Climate change and overfishing are making it harder to catch the anchovies essential to the condiment that underlies so much of Vietnam and southeast Asia’s food

- DA NANG

Bui Van Phuong faced a choice when the Vietnam war ended 50 years ago: Stay in his small village, helping his parents carry on the family’s centuries-old tradition of making fish sauce, or join the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the country for a better life. Choosing a close-to-nothing and nature’s business, making the beloved condiment, known as nuoc mam in Vietnam, that is now in its fourth generation with his son, Bui Van Phu, 41, at the helm. Fish sauce from the village has been recognized by Vietnam as an indelible part of the country’s heritage and the younger Bui is acutely aware of what that means.