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Conservation - THAILAND
Monthly Update for Conservation Programme - October 2007
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Thailand Marine Conservation Project - October 2007
So we are already into November and it's time for me to report on what the volunteers have been up to last month. In mid October we had a week of spectacular diving with a Leopard shark, a Hawksbill turtle and a Whale shark being spotted on consecutive days, and towards the end of the month we all packed our bags and went on a three day trip to Khao Lak to clean some of the beaches in the Province of Phang Nga.
As the Khao Lak trip is where I left off last month, I'll begin with that. Though the principal aim was to clean beaches, the trip was a good opportunity to show the present volunteers a wider view of Thailand and impress on them the enormity of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami as Phang Nga was the province that was hit the hardest, with whole coastal communities being practically wiped out. Despite the constantly miserable wet weather during the whole trip, we managed to clean three beaches, collecting 460kg of rubbish, of which shoes and polystyrene were the most numerous items by a long way; there were hundreds of shoes and sandals found on each beach, along with incredible amounts of environmentally damaging pieces of polystyrene which, as they get eroded, break into tiny white balls which fish and other marine animals can then eat and consequently suffer painful deaths. As the south westerly monsoon has not quite ended it was the perfect time to clean these beaches; in a couple of weeks much of the rubbish we collected, which over the last few months has been washed up on to the shores, will be washed out to sea potentially causing even greater damage to the marine envrionment.
As well as cleaning these beaches, we also took a trip to a beautiful stream in the jungle. Here we spent an hour or so cleaning the path and river banks of rubbish before taking a deserved dip in the cool, clear, refreshing waters - a good way to end a day of cleaning, especially with the added bonus of rocks to jump off, rapids to be washed down and frenzied fish to feed. On the way back to Khao Lak we took a detour to have a look at a couple of fishing boats and a Police patrol boat that had been washed far inland during the tsunami and were too large to remove from where they were dropped - a truly impressive demonstration of the power of the waves though a shocking reminder of the tragedy of the event.
Continuing with beach cleans, we also went to three beaches near Ao Nang earlier in the month - Ao Thung, Lam Pho and Andaman Beach. The first two were particularly dirty and we somewhat unbelievably collected the same amount of rubbish from each one: 244kg. Included in the finds here were a lot of tiles, a lifejacket, a jack (actually a monkey) in the box, large amounts of clothes, 20 batteries, an oil canister and 3 tyres of varying sizes. The total figure for rubbish removed from beaches and jungle stream amounts to 1114.4kg which is the second highest monthly total of the year, so well done to all those involved.
As well as cleaning beaches, we spent one day on a longtail boat heading up river from the longtail harbour at Noppharat Thara collecting any rubbish spotted on the way. A huge amount of glass was found at one site, which pretty much filled all 31 bin bags that had been taken on the trip and weighed in at 215kg. Whilst cleaning, volunteers observed juvenile Pipefish amongst the mangroves and a Sea eagle flying overhead. With all this dedicated on-land cleaning activity, and due to the fact that most of the volunteers have been going through dive courses, there haven't been that many reef salvage dives. In fact, there were only three specific ones in October at Koh Yung, Ao Nui and Losama Bay where 9.1kg of debris was collected. However, now that we have a few more advanced divers I am wanting to make a trip to Mu Sang Nua to see what has collected there over the last few months when the weather has prevented us from going there due to its exposed location. From experience it is a reef that often has huge amounts of fishing net covering it so a clean up mission is most probably due - let's hope the weather allows us to go in the next couple of weeks.
As I said at the beginning of the update, we had a glorious week of weather where the underwater visibility was superb so we took full advantage of this and went to dive sites we had not been to for some time such as the King Cruiser wreck, Shark Point, Anemone Reef, and Bida Nok. The rest of the month has not been such great visibility but despite this, we have ploughed on with training the new volunteers in fish identification and reef survey methodology so that we now have a group that are ready to carry out regular surveys, both Reef Watch for Phuket Marine Biological Centre and more extensive fish surveys for our own records - those involved are definitely looking forward to this whilst others have chosen to go down the route of gaining further dive qualifications such as Rescue, First Aid and even Divemaster.
Quite a few sharks have been spotted this month, either snorkelling, diving or from the boat; volunteers saw more than 10 Blacktip sharks when they were snorkelling at Koh Yung, a Leopard shark came within 2 metres of a couple of us during a dive at Shark Point, and a Whale shark was seen briefly surfacing for air whilst travelling to Koh See - an event that is very rare here in Ao Nang, and especially around the local islands, that it had everyone in the water within 2 minutes snorkelling towards where it was seen but unfortunately the commotion probably scared it off and it wasn't seen again. However, all those that saw the fleeting glimpse will definitely remember it - I certainly will as, having been diving for over 12 years, I have never seen one until that moment. Other animals worthy of note that have been observed include a couple of Banded sea kraits, a Bearded scorpionfish, 3 Rainbow runners, a Fan-bellied filefish, 3 Pharoah cuttlefish (possibly mating), a Fimbriated moral eel, an Octopus on the King Cruiser wreck and a Hawksbill turtle munching on dead coral covered in algae at Bida Nok. Additionally, on the last dive of the month at Koh Talu we came across a large intact fish trap that had lost its marker buoy and was just sitting on the sandy bottom, full of fish. So, we promptly got our sea snips out and cut a large hole in the wire netting to allow the fish to escape a pointless death - an immense feel good factor for everyone involved.
As well as the mangrove cleaning up river of Noppharat Thara harbour, we've had a couple of other days in amongst the mangroves. At the beginning of the month, three of us went to a site near Baan Thung Prasan and helped about 20 people from the local community plant over 5000 mangrove seeds into an area of 5 rai, approximately equivalent to 2 acres. Despite the potentially back-breaking work of bending down to plant a seed every metre, this was a productive day made all the more fun by the interaction with the locals and their amusement of us. We also had a bio-workshop on 'life in the mangroves' given by scientists from PMBC, which consisted of an interesting presentation and an educational walk along the mangrove walkway in Krabi with the head scientist pointing out noteworthy ecological features and animals, and ending with everyone squelching about in the mud taking water samples to test for pH and salinity levels, and oxygen, nitrite and ammonium levels.
This last activity will be followed in early November by a trip to one of the sites that previous volunteers have planted saplings at in order to carry out similar water tests, and also some animal surveys to see if there are different animals living in different locations and soil / water conditions. Everyone is also hoping for the good weather of the high season to kick in properly which will allow us to carry out more effective reef surveys and hopefully visit some of the reefs that we have not been able to reach during the low season to ensure they are not covered in fish nets.
Marten Meynell
3rd November 2007
Director for Thailand Conservation
Projects Abroad
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