Sustainability and shrimp farms on my vacation
I’ve been reading this amazing book called “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” by Thomas L. Friedman. Currently I’m at chapter 4 but this book inspired me so much so I think I should blog about it.
“Hot, Flat, and Crowded” talks about how Americans need to become more sustain and regain their old American spirit of hard working and freedom in order to win back their global super power position. It talks about how the Subprime crisis happened back in 2008-2009 from bad habits and financial recklessness. While sustainability is mentioned as “value” that will lead America out of it.
What struck me the most about all this was how similar the situation was to what’s happening in Thailand. I know I don’t know much about financial system and what I’m about to write might be completely wrong, but I think, in a way, Thai people can should learn from this crisis to prevent this to happen to our country. I said Thailand is going in the same route America went because our policies these days are looking at the short term benefits: free healthcare, free education, lower mortgage for housing, lower tax for buying first cars, etc., these policies might benefit a lot of people whose just emerged as new middle class people and want to improve their quality of lives. Not only this, Thailand hasn’t been preparing for aging society (with 20% of population with age of 60 year old or more), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), energy crisis, and environmental problems. These problems cannot be recognized as new problems, since we always knew this day would come sooner or later. But the government didn’t prepare its people for these. So we are about to face problematic social structure where healthcare system is not effective, reduced workforce due to age, lack of competitiveness in workforce due to free labor transfer from AEC , and high energy price with natural disasters from the global warming – ALL at the same time.
Ironically, all of these were mentioned by the King before, not just years before, but centuries! Thai people say they revere the King so much but when it comes to real practices, we laid back and let time flew. The King has been saying about sustainability through his “New Agricultural Theory”, “Sufficiency economics”, and “renewable energy initiative” for so many years. It’s almost too embarrassing to admit that despite all these examples, Thailand and its people failed to become the leader in sustainability.
I want to raise an example on our short-sightedness. I just went to Sam Roi Yod national park in Prachuab Kirikhan last Wednesday. This park is known for its lush resources – caves, beaches, mountains, flora and fauna. But the first thing I saw when I entered the park was this:
Those were shrimp farms, right in the national park where natural habitats should be conserved! Here’s another picture of them:
They were everywhere! I know Thailand probably exports billions of dollars worth of shrimp each year. But should we keep doing this? People who know a thing or two about shrimp farming can tell you that it’ll take years before you can grow plants on those land again due to high salinity and toxicity from antibiotics and chemical used during farming. Talk about sustainability. I wonder what these people’s children are going to do when they can’t raise shrimp here anymore. They will have to buy all their food despite how abundant this place once was.
Thai people might not affected much from the financial crisis in 2008/2009, but if we will continue to use our resources recklessly like this. We will have to fight the crisis ourselves. Maybe it’s time Thai government should raise sustainability awareness among people and lead Thailand toward a better, more sustainable future.
