Nature & Nurture | Bangkok Post: food

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Sam Roi Yot, and specifically on the area around Ban Phu Noi and Ban Phu Yai, where there are many beaches and coconut plantations. Locals work as farmers or fishermen. Because of the clean and pleasant environment, many people from western Thailand and Bangkok have built vacation homes in the area, which is a kind of gateway to Sam Roi Yot.

FRESH WATERS: Khlong Bang Pu, a clean, unspoiled lagoon where sea animals thrive.

Today, I'd like to talk about the area that is the heart of Sam Roi Yot, a place that has been designated as a national park for more than 30 years. It is filled with limestone mountains, which can be seen in all sizes, superimposed one over the other forming a long chain. There are two different explanations for its name (sam roi yot means "300 peaks"). The first is that people believed that there were 300 mountains in the chains. The other refers to an incident in the past when a Chinese sampan sank off the coast and 300 people survived (sam roi rod means "300 survivors").

Because of the dense mangrove thickets there, the area has long been a swarming place for many kinds of birds, including rare species and some that have become extinct. But it has also taught the painful lesson that when man intrudes upon nature in a destructive way, nature can strike back viciously.

OPTIMISTIC: Community leader Udom Rungmanee is experimenting with crab farming.

About 20 years ago, Sam Roi Yot was full of dense mangrove forests that were cleared away by farmers _ some local, some from outside the area _ to put in breeding ponds for prawns. The prawns were fed commercial feed and chemicals were added to the water to prevent disease.

When unclean water was drained from a pond, it was just transferred to another one. Given this system, good water did not circulate through the ponds, or at least not in sufficient quantity, despite the nearness of the sea. Before long all of the prawn farms were in ruins, their owners suffered heavy financial losses and went into debt, the outsiders returned home, and the area became a desert of abandoned ponds.

But the original inhabitants who had started doomed prawn farms could not leave. They did not own land anywhere else, had no money, and were saddled with debts to repay. The Ban Bang Pu area, once so busy, was now home to only 14 families.

But nature took mercy on Ban Bang Pu. A natural lagoon there opened out to the sea at one end. It was a winding waterway six kilometres long with dense mangrove thickets along both banks. These mangroves were natural breeding grounds for many aquatic animals.

One thing that makes this lagoon special is contains 100% seawater, while almost all of the other lagoons are filled with muddy, brackish water. It is also very clean, because there are few people living nearby. There is no chemical pollution and there are no plastic bags to be found throughout its entire length.

Marine life can live and grow in the lagoon undisturbed.

SHELL OF A TIME: Sea crabs skitter across the deck of a fishing boat, and a puu maa is held up for inspection.

The 14 families whose homes are in the vicinity can survive because they are able to consume the seafood they catch in the lagoon. If there's any surplus, it is sold. Sea crabs are caught daily, and they are unusually good because they are very clean and have no muddy smell. This is because they live right on the bottom instead of burrowing into holes in the mud like crabs that live in brackish water. The crabs are big with thin shells and meat that is firm and sweet.

Udom Rungmanee is a local community leader. He rowed a boat to the lagoon to check on its condition when people in the area began worrying about the failure of the prawn farms. He soon realised that the lagoon had to be protected. People could catch different quantities of fish and crabs, and no one would steal anything. Anyone who caught more than they needed could sell what was left over.

"When people fished with a net, they used ones with big holes, so that small fish could escape," he said. "The big ones would stay in the net. Around here we have sea bass, snappers, pla krabawk and pla kulao [local species]. They all occur naturally here and they are very good.

"Right now we are experimenting here with farming puu maa [a type of crab] from eggs. They only mature in the sea, but we are giving it a try. When we catch a crab that is full of eggs ready to be laid, we take them out and put them in a basin, where we give them oxygen for a day. In seven to 12 days we chop up fresh fish very finely and give it to them.

"So far only about half of the eggs hatch, and only about 25 percent of them survive until they reach the size of a one-baht coin. We prepare a pond for them that isn't too big. We let seawater fill it and make sure that no other kinds of sea animals come in. The water is allowed to drain out and fresh seawater brought in regularly so that the water in the pond is always clean.

"The young crabs are fed with chopped, fresh fish for four months. After that they are big enough to sell, with six or seven of them making up one kilogramme. They bring in about 200 baht a kilo, and we are satisfied with the price.

"We think that we are the first who have been able to raise puu maa in ponds, and we are very kind to the environment. There is no factory-made feed in the ponds, no chemicals to control disease, and no waste water.

"The puu maa normally sold in markets are all caught in the sea, and they cause problems for the fishermen. First of all, the number they can catch is not the same from day to day. On some days the sea is rough and windy and they have to spend money for extra fuel. Then there is the price of the nets, which have to be changed often. So raising the crabs in ponds should be a better way of obtaining them, especially since the farmed puu maa are just as tasty as the ones caught in the sea.

"We take care of the environment and have strict rules about the way we treat it, but we are hoping that others will help us.

"The ones who can really help are the specialists at the Fisheries Department, who should assist in helping the greatest number of farmed puu maa to survive. If they do help, it will be a very good thing because the number of puu maa in the sea is decreasing daily. By farming them, we can help to offset this trend."

The lesson taught by Mother Nature at Sam Roi Yot: if we give proper care and respect to the environment, the results will benefit us far into the future.