By: Gregory McCann
The absence of tourists on the islands and beaches in the southern part of the Thai Kingdom has seen a resurgence of sea turtle hatchlings, an indication that just a little less pressure can have a beneficial effect on a beleaguered region. Pha Nga Province, with limestone crags that rival those of Halong Bay, broke its records for endangered leatherback turtle hatchlings, while commendable fishermen from Phuket scrambled to free a large green sea turtle from entanglement in one of their nets. Ko Samui, which has strained under over-development in pre-Covid years, is now seeing scores of sea turtles on its beaches.
Across the region, lockdowns have drastically cut tourism arrivals, which had pushed ecosystems almost to the breaking point, alarming environmentalists and tourism officials. Some 133 million visitors swarmed across the region in 2019, contributing to coral die-offs and floods of plastic trash and human waste. The reduction in tourism has given many countries a breathing spell of sorts although for many it appears unlikely they will use the hiatus to shore up their environments.
It is difficult to make out which countries have benefited the most during the pandemic. It is best examined on a country-by-country basis. On land, Thailand’s scenic Khao Sok National Park, nicknamed “Little Guilin” by Chinese visitors, has been named ASEAN’s 50th World Heritage Site, and up north in Chiang Rai a local community has won an award for fighting at a grassroots level to protect important wetlands. To top off the good news, a clouded leopard was camera-trapped for the first time in over 20 years in Thailand’s northeast Dangkrek Mountains, which borders Cambodia.
The good news for the Kingdom’s wildlife might, however, end there. For starters, due to Lao and Chinese dams, the Mekong River level is dropping and has, in a very unhealthy sign, turned blue and green. A plantation worker was trampled to death by an angry wild elephant in Rayong province—an all too common occurrence these days in the area between Pattaya and the Cambodian border. A raid at a Taiwanese-owned hotel turned up tiger and leopard pelts, proving that the ugly trade is still going strong in the kingdom, and a raid north of Bangkok in recent months turned up not only tiger pelts, leopard skins, pangolin, and gaur horns, but human skulls to boot!