Many years ago I visited Mahachai, a fishery port zone in Samut Sakhon province. As I walked around I felt like I was a township in Myanmar. The community is dubbed Little Myanmar, with good reason. It is a place where you can hear many people talk in unfamiliar dialects, posters are written in the round letters of the Myanmar alphabet, and of course, women and men have yellowish tanaka paste on their faces.
Mahachai is known as the biggest community of migrant workers from Myanmar. As Thailand starts to grey as a society and relies heavily on a migrant workforce, communities of migrant labourers from neighbouring countries will be a new reality of community settlement in Thailand.
The government wants to regulate and control these migrant labourers. It has proposed providing settlements for them where they would live in clusters so they can be contained as a precaution against risks. In short, they want to create the likes of Mahachai for migrant workers in other areas. Last month, the Labour Ministry came up with a new scheme to create migrant settlements on two pilot sites -- one in Samut Sakhon and the other in Ranong province, a coastal southern town opposite Myanmar.
Anchalee Kongrut writes about the environment in the Life section, Bangkok Post.
The intention is good, though the execution may yield an unfavourable outcome, environment-wise. Under the plan, the authorities want to demarcate a 193-rai plot of mangrove forest reserve in Muang district of Ranong province to accommodate some 40,000 migrant labourers. They claim the designated site is degraded mangrove forest into which sea tides no longer flow. Interestingly, the state will not build it, but will give a concession to the private sector to build and operate the proposed housing, sport stadiums and other facilities.
Even more interesting is the fact seven families have been charged for encroaching on the area.
Under the plan, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will receive a reforestation budget for 4,000 rai of mangrove forest as an off-set. It appears to be a quid-pro-quo, with the loss of less than 200 rai in exchange for some 4,000 rai of forest and homes for 40,000 poor and needy labourers.
But the plan has drawn criticism from conservationists. Marine conservationist Thon Thamrongnawasawat blasts the initiative. "If the forest is degraded, simply revive it, don't use the land for housing," he says. The outcry has forced the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to backtrack. Yet I am sure the project is still in the pipeline. No doubt it will return some time later when public attention fades.
But a forest is not just a piece of land, or a unit of isolated resource, which can be separately developed. It is part of an ecological system where land, water, and living creatures are interconnected. Activity on one plot may affect an adjacent area and the entire system could be disturbed. For example, road projects in Khao Yai National Park have had a huge impact on migration routes of wild animals. Fragmented forests leads to interbreeding among wild animals which harms the genetic pool and threatens their existence.
The mangrove ecology is no different. The mangrove forest along the coastal line serves as a nursery for young aquatic creatures -- the reason our sea has been so rich. So fewer nurseries means less marine babies. When the tsunami hit part of the southern region over a decade ago, only areas with mangrove cover were saved. More importantly, this coastal forest will be the last fortress to deal with coastal erosion caused by climate-change induced rising sea levels.
Thailand has experienced drastic coastal erosion, due partly to the substantial loss of our mangrove forest. Some may falsely believe mangrove can be replanted, so do not appear to take the loss of mangrove area seriously. But for me, I think this particular ecological system along the coastal line should stay undisturbed. I welcome the plan to provide decent shelters for migrant labours or any other needy group. Yet the state has a lot of property for such purposes. So it's better to find other plots of land, and not convert "degraded forests" into development projects. It should be noted the regime set a precedent in promoting some "degraded forests" as a site for Special Economic Zone projects.
The idea is opposed by some local communities which dispute the forest areas are degraded. "It is too late to argue how we can use natural resources to develop the country because resources are so scarce. We should focus on how to preserve the rest," late conservationist Seub Nakasathient said almost three decades ago. Sadly I find a need to repeat his quote time and again.