Chums. Happy Christmas.
This is a 10 minute film that draws to a conclusion the work MAP has accomplished in Ban Talay Nok. Despite the land tenure and control difficulties, Jim and Ning have done incredibly well, and are held in great respect by the village. Please take time to watch it. The physical work is in a different style to BLD but uses the same thinking as my project.
Hope 2010 is muddy and successful
Very best
The Mud Lobster
As per a previous update what Jim and I discussed doing was widening and deepening the start of the main channel (2) from the sluice gate across the centre of the pond. This has been done, and produced some more hills, including A2, B2 and D2 (yes, we've gone round the alphabet already). Much has been learnt during this process. It's been hard slow work as the channel is already quite deep. Thus taking the sides back and sloping them over means shifting a huge amount of soil. Often there are a series of drainage holes on the surface near the edge of the channel. 
These holes mean that any soil below is not going to be that strong or stable. Therefore the subsoil has to be dug out. The implication of this is that sometimes the sides of a channel have to be lent right back to remove this unstable soil, (ie a LOT of digging) and to keep the weight off what is left. Otherwise the sides of the channel collapse inwards. The picture below is looking up the channel, which I was standing in at the time of taking this picture. At the top is what the original channel looks like, unaltered. The pool in the middle is an example of the excavation, the new channel floor being two feet lower than the current channel bottom. Near to me, the sides have collapsed inwards.
There have also been some amazing colours in the clay; yellows, light blues and reds. 
Though this might look like strata of sand, a 'finger test' of the coloured material revealed that it had the same consistency as normal clay.
The new hills have been labelled and marked up on the map at the top of this blog. Some of them will be left blank to monitor natural regeneration. Some have been dibbled with seeds and propagules. And some have received test transplants from home. Over the course of this year I've been collecting seeds and growing them at home, to be able to watch their development. It has allowed me to experiment with various ideas, and look at tolerances. As I'm going on holiday Oct 22nd for a while, these mangroves are now being transported to the site - in some style, I might add. 
Hill R has taken three Nypa fruticans palm plants. These are a species the local people use for their own livelihoods, so the site, once fully established, will have a good proportion of Nypa. These have been grown at home, and will be measured, monthly with the other hills that are monitored. 
Two friends are visiting me from the UK. Over the weekend we will go to BLD and do the monthly measuring of all the plants being monitored. In the subsequent blog some of the initial data will be presented. In the meantime Rossi is back on his bike this weekend at Estorill, Portugal. Go Rossi!
and supported by Emiko and Tomoko from the Environment Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and Dr Sansanee from Mahidol University. Their student group of undergrads and postgrads included an interesting mix of subjects including law, architecture, agriculture and fresh water lake systems. The Krabi visit was only one small part of a gruelling three week tour covering selected parts of southern Thailand, followed by a similar tour around Bangladesh.
Then a visit to The Ammartpanichnukul School in Krabi to hear from the students about their mangrove work, and for the Japanese guests to present some aspects of Japanese life. 
The school then treated us to a great lunch in a nearby restaurant. Krabi Provincial Office played host that afternoon, and the group met the leaders of the KPO and K’ Asae, Director of Wetlands International – Thailand Office.
In the evening we were all treated to a delightful dinner by K’ Sajjaporn from KPO.
and out as far as the bird watching towers. Sadly the weather was not kind, but the visitors were well kitted out with wet weather gear. Bang Non, our boatman and a conservation worker within his own community, presented what he had done to collect and recycle waste from his village in Klong Prasong, helped by Dr Sansanee, and also put on a fabulous lunch, despite it being Ramadan.
In the afternoon the Wetlands team presented the work done at Bang Lang Da, before travelling to the village. Bang Don explained to the group the crab rearing and fattening process before looking at the rehabilitation pond.
Sadly the rains returned so we beetled back to the vans and had banquet with the great and the good of Krabi, hosted by the RCJ.
and an OTOP batik shop. Thus, sadly, our new Japanese friends left for Bangkok, and the next day Bangladesh. Come back soon.
MAP has been working hard over several months to get the Dept for Marine and Coastal Resources and other local authorities to agree and support a rehabilitation effort in their particular pond and to allow the use of a tractor. There have also been protracted land tenure issues that have still not been fully resolved and consequent tension within the village.
Essentially the effort was to dig into the top of the mud walls and re-slope these walls so that they were more horizontal, thus providing a much greater area at the appropriate height for mangrove growth, and particularly Nypa palm. Nypa is useful to them at they make with great skill cigarette papers and roof sections from the leaves.
Always enjoy my trips with Jim and Ning to BTN, where I perform several roles, including jester, driver, bag carrier, official photographer (yes I know Shell, Benjol I wish I had your clicking skills) and help with some of the technical aspects. Measuring the change in soil heights allowed us to ensure we had regraded to about the right height. 
And we answered the question about salinity with a salinity prism – almost fresh water. Much was learnt about they way the villagers liked to work (altogether in one group and the same time on the same bit of pond) and how much we could do in three days (a lot). Inspiring and humbling to see just how strong some of the fine ladies of Ban Tale Nok were, despite the 33 degree heat. The homestay is always an education, and they always always cook well.
The other task at this pond was to widen the sluice area to allow the water to move quicker and drain better. What was not attempted at this stage was to deal with the pond floor. 
This is soft sloppy mud and needs to be channelized, as is happening at BLD. Tune in after Ramadan when we return for more fun.
Last week we got the great news that finally Balaji has been awarded his doctorate from Bharathidasan University, Trichy, India. Balaji visited Krabi and the site 9th May and is the director of OMCAR Tamil Nadu. Many congratulations, Dr Balaji.
The tricky part is digging around the sluice gate – the lowest part of the site. Even at low water this is often part submerged, and water from the rest of the site slowly drains out via here, necessitating digging underwater. In itself, digging in knee-deep water is not a problem when widening the sides but it’s hard to judge the evenness of the deepening as the water is never clear. However digging is impossible if the water is too deep (below, where the water at Hill T would be chest deep), or if a lot of water is still draining out of the pond due to tide or rain (Thursday 23rd!). 
So when the opportunity arose, channel 2 near the gate was widened and deepened. If not, other parts of 2 and 2C were excavated. This included extending 2C further east another 6 meters and making 2C much more curved, by widening more on the opposite side to the nearest hill, which are placed on alternate sides of the channel being dug (below). 
All this digging has produced more hills. We are at ‘X’, almost out of letters. There’s been a lot of activity at home therefore to make enough signs to label the new hills, produce signs for hills have not been labelled to date and replace broken ones. White cardboard-like plastic has been used and permanent markers.
Bang Don and I both thought that these dibblings would die as the soil is saturated and sloppy.
Hill O has received one R. apiculata volunteer, but no buds yet. Test Planting Plot 3 (green sign) has been established with Bruguiera cylindrica and Ceriops tagal. Again a sample will be tagged next week and monitored for progress, to compare against Hill L and Hill E respectively. Hill F also received B. cylindrica dibbling and Hill Q R. apiculata. Hill N has received a Nypa seedling that has been grown in a mix of soil and clay in my own garden. 24cm tall its progress will be monitored but so far it looks happy in its new home.
So what will happen in the next couple of weeks? Channel 2 will be completed. On Friday I tried to dig out a big piece of mangrove trunk that ran across the channel, partially blocking it. At one end is Hill X. So by digging I tried to find the other end, but to no avail – the end remained buried in the mud. So the log will be sawn in two and removed that way. More species will be dibbled, as they come into season. Avicennia sp of all three species are now available, and there are two Xylocarpus granatum in my garden at about three feet that will be transplanted onto their own hills. Watch this mud.
First we took a boat trip round the estuary mangroves. To the bemusement of our regular boatman Bang Non we pulled in at many places to look at trees, pull off leaves, head-butt bulbous fruits and photograph flowers. [That low scrubby bush was Brownlowia tersa, Claudio. Sorry.] 
Then to lunch. Monica is happy to indulge in all Thai foods but Claudio is less catholic in his consumption... unless we were in an Italian restaurant, of which Krabi has at least three good ones. Lunch thus became another Italian lesson of slow eating, delicious food and tiny coffees. The meal concluded we headed to the site at Bang Lang Da.
We also discussed the idea with Bang Don of trying to combine crab fattening in semi-submerged boxes in the pond. Traditionally combining the two properly has been tricky as mangroves need a daily flush of water, where most crab ponds have impounded water. Watch this blog.
At the end, Claudio looked at the site and the digging and in deliberate and perfect English said to me, “You are a mud lobster!” From anyone else this might be an insult. From Claudio it was an honour as well as being perfectly true as mud lobsters are ecological engineers, digging burrows that are 2-3 meters deeps and producing huge hills in the process, which various mangrove species then colonise. 
Dinner was at a Thai restaurant called Gotung. Claudio performed his dinner table trick of eating raw spring onions in lime juice as way of adding a bit of oral aggression to fried rice.
Hill E's Ceriops tagal has burst into life and the Ceriops is leafing nicely. 
As has Hill L's Bruguiera cylindrica.
But the main work has been a lot of digging to widen and deepen Channel 2, including 2C (blue signs). This is tricky work as working low down on the site near the sluice gate means that water is flowing over where the digging is being done the whole time. Digging underwater is difficult. It's heavier work and hard to gauge which bits of the channel bottom need further excavation. So it needs a low tide, when the pond has had time to drain, and no rain. Yesterday there was hard rain for a significant part of the afternoon, so the attention was focused on widening the whole of 2c.
