Changes at WI-TO as the Mud Lobster rejoins Wetlands International

It's been an interesting few months at Wetlands International Thailand Office, with many shocking revelations. Frank van der Valk the Chief Operations Officer from The Netherlands has joined Alvin Lopez, the KL-based Regional Programme Director in Thailand to help with the departure of the former WI-TO director. Sadly, Alvin is also leaving to join the Asian Development Bank in Manila - a great shame as he is a wetlands pro, with many years experience on the Mekong River Commission.

Into this vacuum has bravely stepped Assoc Prof Dr Noparat from PSU as acting Director, and The Mud Lobster (as Programme Manager for Thailand), swapping filthy shorts and a shovel for smarter shoes and spreadsheets. This is a three month position to help get the current projects back on track, produce some financial clarity and bring in new projects. Delighted to have rejoined WI.

First job was to deal with a visit from the IUCN's Mangroves for the Future team to the WI project site in Surat Thani, SE Thailand. This was led by Dr Janaka de Silva, with K Siriporn Sriaram, Oliver Abrenilla (climate change) and K Jirasak Chookwamdee from the DMCR. Despite our slight disarray, and financial embarrassment, the MFF team provided some extremely constructive feedback, which we have been endeavouring to implement over the subsequent few weeks. This has required a lot of time in the Surat Thani field office, working with the team to turn mud into wine.

Next up will be the Green Coast II project in Trang province. Like the MFF project it's livelihoods and mangroves help for coastal communities. And like MFF it will need some help to return to the straight path of project-righteousness. More anon from the besuited Mud Lobster.

The Mud Lobster Returns from London

Apologies for the silence over the last few weeks. Recently returned to Krabi from a trip to London for family, visa duty, mild dental torture (mainly financial) and graduation. Thank you to all the people who supported me during the masters.

More news from the site in the next few days.

Prof Sanit and TEI Team Return to Bang Lang Da

Thai national treasure and worldwide mangrove expert Prof Dr Sanit Aksornkoae from Thailand Environment Institute (TEI) and Kasesart University kindly came back to Bang Lang Da to monitor the progress of the project. TEI was asked by the funder APFED to oversee this EMR project and had been to BLD on 14th June, 2009. So it was a pleasure to welcome them again. As expected Prof Sanit had many insightful comments, questions and was very happy with the progress. As before, the TEI team took great interest in the activities of the whole village and how they were getting on. So the meeting was joined by the BLD crab rearing / conservation team and the discussions broadened to other topics.Kindly, part of the TEI team visited the night before (below) to document the activities and technical details. Therefore most of the work could be discussed in the shade of Bang Dol's house, rather than slopping through the mud in 34 degree heat.
Thank you to the whole TEI team for your visit, thoughts and support.

Wetlands Education at Bang Lang Da's Primary School

On Monday 8th we produced a tremendous schools event, in the primary school that Bang Lang Da village and Ban Talin Chan village share. Jim, Ning and Stephen from MAP were joined by myself and K' Donnapat from Wetlands International, as well as the education officer from the Dept for Marine and Coastal Resources, and both villages' conservation group leaders. After a brief opening speech by the leader of the Taesobahn (sub-district authority), K Donnapat got the talk going with the issues surrounding climate change. K' Donnapat is a natural with the children and seems to thrive off their energy. After a coffee break, the group of children was divided into three. One of these groups was lead by K' Ning of Mangrove Action Project. A professional educator and community development specialist, she engaged the children in discussions about mangrove tree adaptations to inter-tidal life and mangrove food webs.K' Donnapat's devised an educational snakes and ladder's game, where the children had to answer questions about wetlands to be able to move up and down the board.
The third group worked with K' Manoon from the the Dept for Marine and Coastal Resources', who talked about uses and outputs from mangroves.When the group came back together, Jim from Mangrove Action Project covered the problems related to plastic bags, the fact that they take years to degrade, and are often used only once, for just a few minutes. To give the children a permanent reminder, each student was given a cloth bag to keep.
After lunch at the school we asked the children to draw what they wanted their mangroves to look like in the future and then discuss their thoughts in front of everyone else.

After the drawings were presented we moved to the rehabilitation site, where community leaders Bang Dol and Bang Mardee talked with the local children about their experiences of cutting all the mangrove for charcoal in the 1990s and the resulting disastrous effects.

We finished with a brief description of the restoration work at the site and why we were running this project, and Bang Dol concluded the discussions with a brief summary of his crab group's activities.

Thank you to all who took part, the teachers, the support from the DMCR, the people of Bang Lang Da, the children, and the amazing energy of K' Ning and K' Donnapat.

Nursery Species Thrives On-Site

1st Feb saw a return to the site. The first for a while. Great to chat with the villagers, who of whom one had managed to break his leg on his motorbike and was suitably plastered. [Cultural learning # 76; people in Thailand seem not to write on plaster casts.] After the usual banter, where I form the butt of most jokes, and deservedly so, I headed down to the site.

Sadly, over the course of the November sojourn to the UK, all the metal rods were stolen from the site, marking out the control areas and test planting plots. These worked really well, not one moving from its position, nor dropping a rope. But they proved too tempting for someone and have not been seen since.
The good news was that not only were almost all the plants doing well, but the last experiment with Sesuvium on E2 was also thriving. Sesuvium portulacastrum is a stringy herb that likes full sun and is quite happy with salt. Goats also love it. Its utility in this context comes from its stringy nature. The herb it is good at trapping various mangrove seeds and propagules as they drift past on the water. This is useful here because the land is too low and the water at highest tide is at least at hilltop level. So when the rainy season (starts April-ish) brings the new seeds it will be interesting to see if any seeds get caught up in the Sesuvium.

Having inspected the plants I only wanted to get back into the rhythm of digging, so repaired channel 2D, added to G2 and formed a new hill (H2). Needless to say, then next morning was a slow start, feeling as though I'd been run through a mangle.