Thailand (Lonely Planet, 13th Edition) - China Williams [29]
Throw away cigarette butts in the rubbish bin not on the beach, street or ocean.
Skip the jet skis and motorised vehicles through the jungle, which create noise pollution and disturb animal habitats.
Pack out all rubbish you brought into a natural environment.
Don’t feed wildlife or marine animals.
Avoid collecting or buying corals or shells.
TIPS FOR ECO-DIVING
The popularity of Thailand’s diving industry places immense pressure on fragile coral sites. To help preserve the ecology, adhere to these simple rules.
Avoid touching living marine organisms, standing on coral or dragging equipment (such as fins) across the reef. Coral polyps can be damaged by even the gentlest contact.
When treading water in shallow reef areas, be careful not to kick up clouds of sand, which can easily smother the delicate reef organisms.
Take great care in underwater caves where your air bubbles can be caught within the roof and leave previously submerged organisms high and dry.
Join a coral clean-up campaign, sponsored by dive shops on Ko Tao and Ko Samui.
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Also consider keeping your outdoor adventures as close as possible to your hotel or guesthouse. For example, dive shops on Ko Samui shuttle divers to sites off the coast of Ko Pha-Ngan and Ko Tao, a journey of two hours in one direction. Meanwhile, visitors who base themselves on Ko Tao need only travel 30 minutes at the most to reach these sites. The same scenario occurs in Chiang Mai, where tour operators will take trekkers on far-flung hiking and caving trips in Mae Hong Son Province. Instead of spending your vacation ‘commuting’, why not stay where you play: stick to the general guideline of no more than one hour’s travelling time from your hotel or guesthouse for any trip or activity.
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Volunteering
Many grassroots organisations in Thailand need volunteers to help in animal rescue and environmental conservation efforts.
Elephant Nature Park (0 5320 8246; www.elephantnaturepark.org; Mae Taeng) Sangduen Chailert’s award-winning sanctuary. The park accepts volunteers to help care for the resident elephants. Those with veterinary experience are most welcome but others with strong backs can help out too. Positions are for one, two and four weeks. For more information, Click here.
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BANGKOK’S STREET WALKERS
The heat, the hawkers, the hookers – Bangkok is already a zoo at night, and then you’ll spot an elephant plodding down the road with a flashing light tied to its tail. The skinny mahout will thrust a bunch of bananas in your hands to feed to the animal in exchange for a fistful of baht. Surreal, indeed. Heartbreaking, most certainly.
Thailand has a pachyderm crisis. Throughout Thai history, these animals were revered for their strength, endurance and intelligence, working alongside their mahouts harvesting teak or transporting goods through mountainous terrain. And then the modern world invaded and promptly made the elephant redundant.
In 1989 logging was banned in Thailand, resulting in decreased demand for trained elephants. Working elephants have a career of about 50 years and are trained at a young age by two mahouts, usually a father-and-son team, who can see the animal through its lifetime. Thai law requires that elephants be retired and released into the wild at age 61. They often live for 80 years or more.
But without a job, the elephants and their dependent mahouts come to the big city, like the rest of the country’s economic refugees, in search of work. And what can an elephant do in this era of planes, trains and automobiles? One option is to roam the streets like a beggar.
A promising alternative is the elephant rescue preserves that support themselves through tourism. Lampang’s Thai Elephant Conservation Center (Click here), Chiang Mai’s Elephant Nature Park (Click here) and Patara Elephant Farm (Click here) are just a few of the creative solutions for ensuring these animals’ dignity and quality of life.