Conservation - THAILAND Monthly Update for Conservation Programme - March 2007

Thailand Marine Conservation Project - March 2007

After a busy and industrious month here in Thailand it is time for me to write another monthly update of all the activities the volunteers have been involved in. As it was held over the first weekend of March, it makes sense to start with a description of the school conservation camp that Projects Abroad helped run with Wetlands International and the Krabi local authorities. It was a pilot environmental awareness-raising exercise involving 30 pupils from Muang Krabi School aged between 12 and 16. The weekend started off with a morning of presentations on mangrove and reef ecology, and the need to preserve these vital ecosystems by the planting of mangrove trees and the cleaning of beaches and reefs. As a result of the hard work and inspiration of the volunteers during February, fantastic interactive educational games and a short play had been developed, which definitely helped to hold the children's attention for the whole morning.

This was followed after lunch by a trip to the mangrove walkway in Krabi town allowing the pupils to see first hand the highly productive mangrove ecosystems. It was evident that they had been attentive during the morning because several kids jumped down into the mud to pick up litter lying amongst the trees and shrubs. Everyone was then taken to the school where we all joined in planting 80 trees around the school grounds. Despite an already long day, there was still one more activity that day - a beach clean up near Thara Park in Krabi. Within an hour, 454kg of rubbish was enthusiastically collected. The effectiveness of many people cleaning was evident as was the amusement of locals walking past for whom the notion of cleaning a beach was completely alien; hopefully the sight of 30 school kids and 15 foreigners doing just this might have increased their awareness of dropping litter as well as providing an unusual spectacle.

The children spent the night in tents and we rejoined them the next day for a trip to the bird hideout on Koh Klang, where unfortunately there weren't many birds to be seen due to it being low tide. The children went back to the mangrove walkway to carry out various research projects, and draw some incredibly colourful and artistic pictures of the ecosystem. Everyone had lunch together in Thara Park, and then played some very energetic and slightly crazy games, followed by splitting into groups to develop 2 minute plays about environmental topics. The weekend was a great success and thoroughly enjoyed by volunteers and school children alike. The effort and participation of the Projects Abroad volunteers will have definitely made a positive impression on the children involved and was very much appreciated by all the teachers and Wetlands International.

Moving on to the work that has been carried out by the volunteers in the mangroves during March, I would say the general feeling is one of satisfaction. They have been involved in a variety of activities ranging from mapping out the trees in the big shrimp farm at Klong Yuan, planting seeds at a new site, Lang Daan, and carrying out invertebrate surveys following the bio-workshop that was given by scientists from the Phuket Marine Biological Centre on life in the mangroves. The bio-workshop was very interesting and well presented, with the afternoon's practical activity at Baan Thung Prasan looking at the different invertebrate species present in two different water inlets, and testing the water for levels of salinity, ammonium, oxygen and nitrate. One of the testing sites was next to our research nursery and everyone was excited to observe the beginnings of growth amongst the seeds planted in January; one of the mangrove days in April will certainly involve a trip back to monitor their progress properly.

The sapling mapping exercise at Klong Yuan shed light on a clear pattern of survival versus dead saplings according to different locations. In areas where the survival rates were not so high it was unclear if this was due to high seawater inundation levels or contaminated soils but is something that we can try to look into on future visits to the site.

Towards the end of March, the volunteers spent 2 days with 15 local villagers at Lang Daan and planted just over 5,550 seeds of two mangrove species; Rhizophora apiculata and Ceriops tagal - a fantastic effort made even more memorable by the interaction with the villagers who truly appreciated our help, so much so that they asked us to return on our day off to plant more! These planting efforts were achieved on two consecutive mornings and followed by a return to Klong Yuan where, in pairs, volunteers carried out invertebrate surveys using 1m by 1m quadrats and ID cards. Despite the scorching sun, everyone found this activity particularly interesting, and in similar fashion to the sapling mapping there were definite patterns observed. Two patterns of note were that in areas where the mud smelt of sulphur, far less animals were found, although the presence of worms was higher in these spots, and there were also fewer invertebrates to be found in the sandy, dryer areas. However, this could be explained by the timing of the surveys and the consequent tide levels, as during low tide in extreme heat the mud dries up quickly and the animals seem to bury further into the ground for protection.

As well as the beach clean up with the school children at the beginning of the month, there have been two other beach cleans at Ao Tung and Klong Muang. Amongst the 343kg of rubbish found at Ao Tung, were 140 batteries which were in various stages of corrosion, thereby damaging the local environment considerably. This spurred us on to find out where to correctly dispose of used batteries and so we now have a special bin for batteries alongside the other recycling bins in the house. During the beach clean at Klong Muang, the volunteers collected 396.5kg of rubbish interspersed with cooling off in the sea as it was another scorching day. They also observed a small coastal community whose livelihoods centred round numerous tables full of squid drying in the sun - quite a sight for all the volunteers. Between the three beach clean ups, a grand total of 1193.5kg of rubbish was removed and prevented from entering the sea - a great achievement.

The marine salvage mission to remove the net at Mu Sang Nua that was spotted in February took six dives over three consecutive days, in which the entire net was carefully cut away and brought to the surface. During the operation many sea urchins, anemones, molluscs, various types of crab including hermit and spider crabs, and even a puffer fish were freed from the net by the volunteers. The act of freeing these animals, added to the sight of a cleaned reef, in my experience never fails to provide great feelings of satisfaction as the work proves so effective. The weight of the removed net totalled a massive 232.5kg. Going on past experiences of net salvage, it would have been quite an unpleasant struggle bringing it back to land if it wasn't for our salvage stretcher, as a net that has been underwater for some time often picks up lots of sea lice and other microscopic organisms that sting the hands and arms of the volunteers carrying it.

Volunteers have also been storming through dive courses during March with Scuba, Advanced, Rescue and Divemaster qualifications all being attained by various volunteers depending on what level they started the project on. On the reef monitoring side of the project, we have had volunteers taking part in all three phases at one time, which has presented slight logistical problems but none that couldn't be overcome by alternating the reef monitoring programme with some light salvage hunts at suitable sites. During the dives, volunteers have been lucky enough to spot some fantastic sea creatures such as crocodile needlefish, pregnant ghost pipefish, tigertail seahorses, peacock flounders, hawksbill turtles, toxic sea urchins, nurse sharks, black tip reef sharks, an octopus, sea snakes, devil scorpionfish, leopard sharks with remoras attached to them (or trying to attach to the volunteer divers!), and pairs of nudibranchs mating.

So, looking back on it, March has been a month full of fun, hard work, awesome sightings underwater, and satisfaction by all at many jobs well done. So, huge thanks to all the volunteers and staff that have toiled and sweated under the midday sun, played crazy games and interacted brilliantly with the school children on the conservation camp, got their hands dirty on the beach clean-ups, their whole bodies muddy in the mangroves, and saved many, many marine organisms from probable death due to entrapment in discarded fishing nets on the reefs. All of which sets us up for an action-packed April, during which we have Song Kran (Thai New Year) and Projects Abroad's teaching, care and sports programmes moving down from Bangkok to join us here in Krabi.

Marten Meynell
Conservation Manager
3^rd April 2007
Projects Abroad

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