DeepInTheForest

Believe it or not, in Cambodia there is 1 man that owns (has the right to) every single Elephant. You NEVER see Elephants being forced to walk the streets in Phnom Penh eating bananas from tourists.

Cambodian elephants are nearly extinct. There are only 300 wild elephants left, and 100 in captivity.

http://khmerization.blogspot.com/2010/01/cambodian-elephants-nearly-extinct.html

This editorial is quite good, on a topic that should matter to us.

Alvarez and animatic, above, correctly point out that ignorance, poverty, and corruption, and wildly incorrect beliefs contribute to the crisis of the elephant.

There is another cause. It may even be greater. I am referring to the pattern of land use and development that has chewed up almost all of the once awe-inspiring Thai forests.

Capitalism, as it is practiced currently, has no brakes. We can condemn failures in countries like Thailand, but every country, especially the more developed ones that most of us hail from, have failed to reign in the excesses of our current global capitalist culture.

I don't think any poster in this forum hails from a country that can be held up as an example of how to protect natural treasures.

It's something we all need to work on, around the globe.

Ah, the dilemma of our times: How to "develop", and what is "development", anyway?

This article nails some of the most difficult issues facing the people of the world. As capitalism has expanded-- its global reach now penetrates virtually every hamlet and remote valley-- its drawbacks have become increasingly clear. Along with the benefits of globalized trade-- better medicine, transport links, endless youtube videos of bizarre human behavior, and opportunities for some-- come crushing disenfranchisement and displacement for others.

The inevitable concentration of wealth (and its associated huge socioeconomic inequality), seems to be one result. Environmental destruction seems to be another.

This bit was telling: "Although Thailand's real GDP increased by 70 per cent from 1998 to 2009.... the minimum wage for workers in the agriculture sector and in urban areas dropped by 1.6 per cent."

Thais, like all of us, would be well-advised to seriously consider the path forward. We all have a lot of work to do, if our great great great grandchildren, who, face it, we rarely think of, are to have a livable world.

A couple of quick points;

My OP noted that " "Drought has arrived early and in Uthai Thani Province, where local residents are now running short of water for consumption." a quote from a thread a few days ago.

Wutthichai is NOt a local (to Uthai Thani), just another activist with an agenda.

"A few hectares" referred to the flux of dams, not their total area. When we start considering emissions, dams produce miniscule amounts compared to coal @ 2.5MWh/tonne (ie coal burnt, not tonnes of emissions) The small hydro station at Wivenhoe replaces 200 t/h of coal burnt at Tarong.

Wivenhoe had to release by law and also because it had reached dangerous levels. Blaming the release for loss of life ignores the fact the huge flows were coming down the Lockyer Valley as well as into Wivenhoe. Assuming it was full before the incident, and given that it had reached 225% capacity, it seems that it had held back 3.2 BILLION m³ which would hardly have helped the situation.

The moves to solar power will actually increase the need for hydo-power dams. The only practical method (so far) to store power is to pump water uphill and recover the energy at peak load periods (as in Snowy R. scheme). At present this done at night to maintain minimum stable load on NSW's 660MW generators; with more solar coming on-line this may also happen during the day. Qld (and other states) should be looking at something similar as they are struggling to supply peak load (TV ads - reduce usage) and reluctant to build more C-F stations.

Good points, worth pondering. The emissions of coal plants are indeed considerable. Even disregarding the CO2/global warming angle, soot and microparticles are a health risk. I know, I live in between two plants situated about four miles apart.

Storage of electrical power from solar is, as you point out, a problem that still needs solutions. The one you mention is interesting, because (I'm speculating here) it may mean that if the main purpose is to generate electricity from the dam, they won't have to be built as high. (A high "head" is usually achieved during the rainy season to provide electricity throughout the dry season.)

Lately there has been talk of using solar power from Spain/the Sahara to help power Europe. Storage will be a problem there, too. No water is available, really. Liquid salt tanks, perhaps?

take care, see you on another thread.

If you had posted as a reply, i would have found this much faster and easier. While your points have some merit I consider them insignificant compared to the concerns of a population with insufficient drinking water.

Re flooding - dams are not built on soil but rock, and I can see no reason why a release from a dam would exceed the inflow i.e.

why would the dam, even if overflowing, have to release more water than was moving downstream anyway, unless they were expecting even heavier flows. The total effect should be that high flows may last longer but the devastating peaks will be reduced.

Re greenhouse - grasping at straws with that. Production of methane rather than CO₂ in an area of hardly more than a few hectares is insignificant to the hydrocarbon burden of any tropical river. Have you seen the ridiculous claim in the WDR that I referred to?

BTW I have a home in Bribane and well aware of the problems here. Much of the flooding was caused by undammed flows, and the flood was certainly mitigated by Wivenhoe Dam.

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Jeesh. I still am dinking around with the reply mechanism-- I didn't want to include my long bit, and the system keeps complaining about the opening quote tags not matching the closing quote tags, which isn't true at all. Anyway.

A few thoughts for you to chew over:

Dams are built into rock to the extent possible. But not always. Rock also varies in strength and durability. Compromises are usually made.

Check this out:

"The study of foundations is ever more complex than the study of dam bodies, as the foundation is a natural and often very heterogeneous material specific to each dam site. It has to withstand great stress, to be watertight at the right places, and internal erosion should be strictly avoided.

"Most low dams are founded on soft soil and most high dams on rock, but this is not a general rule and many dams are founded partly on rock and partly on soil either in the deepest place or in the banks.

"Further, rock quality may vary considerably along each dam." from http://www.hydrocoop.org/publications/2.12.1.1.article.pdf

Minor point: Dams in Thailand are not usually built because of a shortage of drinking water, as far as I can tell. Usual reasons given are flood control, electrical power generation, and irrigation. I think you probably would agree with this.

Releases from dams-- Dams have a listed capacity, which they can exceed during flood times, i.e. store more than their nominal storage capacity. They are allowed to increase over 100% for only a limited time-- then they must release water. This can exceed inflow. Incidentally, this was the case last year at Wivenhoe. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2011/s3190309.htm I am sure you are correct that the dam withheld a great volume of floodwater and thus prevented even greater flooding. But when it released, it did so very quickly, with attendant loss of life. The operators, incidentally, did not want to lower the level of dam waters because of a recent history of drought. This should sound familiar to Thailand residents...

From wikipedia:

"During a flood the dam is designed to hold back 1.45 million megalitres (1.18 million acre feet) of additional water for flood mitigation or 225% capacity. Under the water release plan which is defined by law, excess water must be released from the dam within seven days of it reaching 100% capacity." --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wivenhoe_Dam

The area of reservoirs is more than a few hectares, as I am sure you are aware. To put a vague number on it, estimates are that there are over 400,000 sq km of dam reservoirs-- that's a third of the area of the world's natural lakes. The scholarly work on methane production is a work in progress. You can go to scholar.google.com, though, and find papers like this one: http://abbeyroad.geocean.u-bordeaux.fr/indiv/Abril/documents/publi/guerin_et_al_2006_GRL.pdf

Again, I am not saying that all dams are a bad idea, or that we should eliminate all dams. But we have been building them like crazy people, and still we have floods. Why is that? And what is the solution? I think it may consist of changing some of the way we do things. Reforestation may be a partial answer, as well as decreasing our impermeable surfaces (parking, paving, etc.).

I thought Wutthichai Srikhampha made some good points.

"The group also proposed ideas to solve the annual flooding problem, including placing the restoration and conservation of water-producing forests on the national agenda, along with building medium and small sized reservoirs at all 77 tributaries of the Yom River.

""These reservoirs, which have a joint capacity threefold that of the Kaeng Sua Ten in total, could initially trap the rainwater locally and later drain it gradually," he said. There should also be a policy to promote a 'one tambon one reservoir' scheme elsewhere to trap rainwater locally and use it for irrigation, said Wutthichai."

Again, thanks so much for this exchange. You've forced me to think more about the issue-- never a bad thing. Cheers.

Thanks for your reply, OzMick; your questions are excellent and to the point. That dams can cause or exacerbate flooding seems definitely counterintuitive. When I first heard that, I dismissed it as well. How could a dam lead to flooding?

I’m not an expert by any means, just a curious citizen, so take what follows with a grain of salt and do your own searching on the internet. And all this is not to say that dams don’t have a place, when they are properly planned and operated. But there are significant caveats, especially with larger dams. More research is being done all the time, so… hopefully, we’re learning. Obviously, land uses—impervious surfaces—are a large part of our flood problem as well.

Dams do indeed control smaller floods quite well. The problem is with big rainfalls, when the dam nears capacity. This, of course, is when you would most want the dam to hold more water, but it can’t. The rains tend to weaken the earth around the dam, and cause engineers to worry about dam failure. That would be unthinkable, so large quantities of water are often released, again, just when you don’t need it.

The sudden release of such large amounts of water causes another kind of problem downstream beyond what we normally think of. Streams get “scoured”, and become “armored”, when a sudden rush of dam water sweeps away silt, sand, gravel, aquatic plants, leafy debris, and large tree limbs. The result is a river that has less plant and animal life, acts as less of a sponge for water, and—you guessed it—more vulnerable to floods. You would think that this would happen anyway, in normal floods, but people who study dam/environment interactions say that’s not the case.

Dams also begin silting up immediately after construction, so their capacity is immediately diminished. Dams are designed to withstand the pressure of a certain height of water, but silt is much more massive, and as the reservoir silts up, engineers become more wary of dam failures. Dams have a finite lifetime—their usefulness diminishes over time. You would think that the silt could be dredged, but this has not proven economical over the long haul.

Dams rarely serve simply as flood-control devices—their cost is usually leveraged with projected benefits from electrical power generation, or irrigation. This causes management conflicts, as we have recently seen in Thailand.

If you think that dam problems are somehow due to Thailand’s political squabbles or some kind of ineptitude, you might be surprised to find that Westernized countries are not immune to similar problems. One example is the Wivenhoe dam near Brisbane.

http://tinyurl.com/4t4jya5

http://tinyurl.com/7rxmpor

This link makes some worthwhile points, I think. http://www.travelfis...he-thai-floods/

The problem with greenhouse gas production occurs because the level of water behind the dam rises and falls seasonally. When the water is low, vegetation regrows, especially in a tropical, high-sun country like Thailand. When the water rises, it floods the newly-grown green stuff, causing it to rot anaerobically, producing methane. This is in addition to whatever forest material was inundated initially. The cycle will continue as long as the dam operates, since water levels are allowed to rise and fall.

Some other things to consider with dams are that the water behind them is oxygen-deprived, so large releases from reservoirs impact the water quality below, and can kill fish, alter reproduction, etc.

Also, by slowing water flow, dams often increase water temperatures. Fish and other aquatic organisms are pretty sensitive to temperature, and this becomes another area of impact.

Contrary to the facile judgments posted above, there are many reasons to question the usefulness of dams to control floods and supply water during drought times.

Rivers provide many benefits if they are allowed to run freely, including recharge of groundwater, the carrying and replenishing of nutrients and minerals to the land, preservation of fisheries (which in Thailand are fundamental to the health and sustenance of entire regions), employment, sustenance, and social stability.

A river is not just the water contained within banks, but many interacting systems, including adjacent forests, marshes, the ever-changing banks and bottom, as well as the life that it sustains -- including humans. The flood cycle's value to agriculture and environmental health should not be underestimated.

Dams can provide some benefits, but these must be measured against the downsides, which include the increased risk of floods, increased risk of waterborne diseases (including malaria), risk of collapse, mismanagement, providing an opportunity for graft and corruption, the trapping of sediment, increased pollution, increased global warming gas emissions, and damage to estuaries, which are some of the richest biological areas in the river, and indeed the globe. And we must not forget the displaced locals, who are never adequately compensated, if at all, for the loss of their homes, sense of place, and even cultural identity.

The Thai locals who oppose this dam have their reasons. We have only scratched the surface here. Readers can inform themselves via many sources on the internet.

I don't think the main problem is plastic bags per se.

It's the littering which makes plastic bags so visible.

Maybe an anti-littering campaign would be more beneficial to the environment?

Not in my view. The number of plastic bags worldwide is staggering.

The BMA says that in Bangkok alone, there are more than 600,000 plastic bags dispensed every day. (I think this figure is wildly conservative, but what do I know.) Of the 10,000 tons of daily trash generated by Bangkok, 1,800 tons are plastic bags. Their annual dispoal cost is 600 million baht, or over 18 million dollars.

http://ipsnews.net/n...sp?idnews=51969

But there is no way they will all make it to a landfill. Many bags find their way into the oceans and streams, where they clog the guts of sea mammals and birds. When they decompose, they produce Bisphenol A, which interferes with reproduction, and styrene monomer, suspected of causing cancer. More in the link below, none of it good:

http://news.national...ceans-seas.html

Behind all this is the plastics industry, which in Thailand is immensely profitable. For example, domestic demand for PVC is about 450,000 tonnes per year. It is not biodegradable.

Read, inform yourselves, and get active.

As long as my Sukhunvit condo is not flooded, I don't care if they open up the BBB or not.

Such a humanitarian soul ???

There is the crux of our dilemma, in two succinct comments. They are almost koan-like in their simplicity.

Some posters have previously said, 'So, the district that protests gets what it wants?'

Consider: There are learned scholars (e.g., Henri Lefebvre) who say that all urban space is socially constructed and is the product of contention. A lot of arguing and squabbling that never seems to cease. In Lefebvre's view, this dynamic is a good thing and we may as well celebrate it-- it accounts for the dynamism, health, and adaptability of the urban system.

This is not to discount the importance of teamwork or to downplay the suffering of citizens. We should not expect things to be always smooth, or to expect people to agree on a common course of action, in difficult situations.

It may be that a certain degree of pushback and jostling against the dominant power may be necessary for the longer health of things. Local people seem to grasp this intuitively, and know how to go about it, perhaps better than those of us who view things from a certain remove, even though physically we are up to our knees in water.

A well-written and thoughtful piece. Although I too despise much of what transpires in Thai politics, and decry the criminality of the senior Shinawatra, I too, have wondered why Yingluck has taken the abuse she has (particularly among posters in this forum, whose level of vituperation seems to rise as time goes on). The author's suggestion regarding cutting down on garbage and packaging is a great one. As are the comments about the undredged canals that are choked with hyacinths.

Thailand is in need of fixing in many areas. What Western posters here often fail to acknowledge is the failure of other countries in many areas as well. I would like to point out that after 1000 years of flood management, the Netherlands experienced a massive dyke failure in 1953 that killed 1800 people. Britain endured widespread flooding in 2007, only to be flooded again in 2009. The US lost a major city in 2005-- and remediation of crucial wetlands has only just begun after an unconscionable delay of five and a half years. And has anyone considered the financial health of their home country vs. Thailand? Thailand's national debt is currently a few percent of GDP, something that few of us can say of our home countries, for better or for worse.

Obviously, sometimes it is not just the natural disaster itself, but our social systems which need remediation. Political squabbles, capitalism and the profit motive can divert our attention from what we need to focus on.

If we are to move forward (and somehow we will collectively stumble forward), we will be forced to re-evaluate our priorities. We can start by acknowledging that our natural systems are severely degraded. The country has been deforested and paved to an extraordinary extent. This has contributed greatly to the current disaster.

One more thought: a poster above mentioned that settlement in floodplains should be discouraged. I feel constrained to point out that the City of Angels is sited in possibly the worst possible location. Historically, Bangkok was underwater. To pretend otherwise seems folly. In my view, the posters who complain that locals who open sluice gates should move to another location are missing the point. It is Bangkok's location that is the problem, not a few people pulling down sandbags. Putting a modern city in Bangkok's location is asking for trouble. Trouble has arrived. Now, what will we do about it? An engineered solution will be costly and perhaps, in the long term, unsustainable.

So in this forum we have a huge amount of sound and fury concerning the release of water from the Bhumibol dam.

But-- the dam's capacity is 13.5 million cubic meters, and the water inundating Bangkok is estimated at 14 billion cubic meters.

How much do we really think that the timing of releases from this dam matters in terms of Bangkok's flooding?

We also hear many calls for even more dams. The dams are ineffective against flooding, as has been demonstrated here. Do we think that more dams will help matters?

Bhumibol dam capacity is 13,462,000,000 m3, or 13 and a half Billion cubic meters.

The flood water is estimated at 14 billion liters.

Managed properly (ie not for the sole benefit of one family and friends rice crop at hugely inflated subsidised prices) this dam, with others, would have been effective in preventing any flooding. But alas, the country is being run for the benefit of the Thaksin amart. In fact as this flood was well under way, the only thing the govt was doing was furiously planning and preparing for his excellency's triumphant return.

You are quite right, I stand corrected as regards the Bhumibol dam's capacity. Never rely solely on wikipedia for factual info, is the lesson learned here.

But I still need to convince myself that even optimal water releases could have attenuated the flooding by any significant amount... Back to doing more research, I'm afraid.

So in this forum we have a huge amount of sound and fury concerning the release of water from the Bhumibol dam.

But-- the dam's capacity is 13.5 million cubic meters, and the water inundating Bangkok is estimated at 14 billion cubic meters.

How much do we really think that the timing of releases from this dam matters in terms of Bangkok's flooding?

We also hear many calls for even more dams. The dams are ineffective against flooding, as has been demonstrated here. Do we think that more dams will help matters?

P.S. But, in my personal opinion, I call it "Capitalisim is a house-of-cards, about to collapse".

You're opinion may differ, of course.

People illegally building in klongs or people bribing officials to get access to do this is the opposite of capitalism.

Of course illegalities and bribery are the opposite of capitalism. Just ask those bulwarks of capitalism--Goldman Sachs!!

deleted, somehow my post didn't make it through the editor.

Exports last year from Thailand were their highest ever at 196 billion dollars, and are up 25% for the first 5 months of this year over last year

http://www.mcot.net/...age/226209.html

Thanks for this link. I think we should examine the statement by Commerce Minister Pornthiva Nakasai, who says "Thailand benefits from seven Free Trade Agreements with Japan, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the Asean countries."

From the end of the piece: "The country's trade deficit was recorded at US$3.68 billion. Despite the trade deficit under the FTAs, the trade agreements helped Thailand expand the markets, the commerce minsiter said."

What we need to consider is who benefits from the trade agreements. A blanket statement like "Thailand benefits..." is disingenuous because it suggests that all Thais are benefiting equally. From the looks of things (see the statement above), the bilateral trade agreements favor the more-developed countries, with trade profits accruing to the Thai commercial and industrial elites. The fact is, the world trade system makes use of cheap labor wherever it can find it. The onset of globalization has led to increased profits, but they are never distributed equally. This is a problem of our times for which there is no easy answer.

Bilateral trade agreements have other downsides, often hidden from the public. Japan uses Thailand as a toxic waste dump: http://www.atimes.co...a/IB21Ae01.html

Other developed countries do as well. It is very convenient for corporations to site themselves in places where environmental and labor protections are near non-existent. (Think Map Ta Phut.) They can externalize the costs of pollution. The world's less-advantaged pay the price.

What is needed is international agreements, labor representation, and environmental guidance structures. I'm not holding my breath, but I am working for change.

My first inclination is to give a blanket condemnation to this statement by GOAT.

But you also have to be mindful that local strongmen can sometimes effectively control elections via intimidation, favors, control of profitable businesses-- the usual machine politics. So there has to be some kind of way to ensure that local leaders aren't running a corrupt fiefdom. I don't have any answers. I think Thailand is certainly in need of more democracy. How to get there... ? Perhaps it is indeed time for local elections, and we will have to live with some districts that are not above-board, if the majority are honest and workable.

Democracy is a tricky business. I have never experienced it, though I hail from a "modern democracy".

Perhaps some of the western posters in this forum who are constant in their dissing of Thailand and other SE Asian countries can appreciate that their own backyards are often not so clean, either.

The company's representatives claimed there was no time and pushed them to approve the project? This sounds fishy to me. There's been too much of this since forever in SE Asia, and E Asia. If the people oppose the project, and apparently they do, I'm guessing that they have pretty sound reasons and suspicions.

And not to alarm anyone, but after the disasters in Japan, there has yet to be any discussion of the status of the spent fuel rods that are sitting in cooling ponds at every reactor site. They are stored on site just because there is no known waste disposal solution. And if these cooling pools lose their integrity, as has the reactor cores, the spent fuel rods also pose a huge environmental risk. HUGE!

HUGE is an understatement.

Ridiculous overstatement.

The whole sequence of events is a ringing endorsement for nuclear power safety. If this – basically nothing – is what happens when decades-old systems are pushed five times and then some beyond their design limits, new plants much safer yet would be able to resist an asteroid strike without problems.

But you wouldn't know that from looking at the mainstream media. Ignorant fools are suggesting on every hand that Japan's problems actually mean fresh obstacles in the way of new nuclear plants in the UK, Europe and the US.

That can only be true if an unbelievable level of public ignorance of the real facts, born of truly dreadful news reporting over the weekend, is allowed to persist.

^ No, I didn't write that, but I bet you wouldn't have read it if I'd put it in quotes.

So why don't you read the real truth about what happened at Fukushima. Go on, I dare you!:

http://www.theregist...hiima_analysis/

Spread the word. And if you doubt us on any of this, please read this excellent early description of the events, or follow the reports from the IAEA and World Nuclear News. Very few other channels of information are of much use at the moment.

Right. I'll just rely on the World Nuclear News for an objective take on things, as you are apparently willing to do.

In the meantime, there's this from msnbc.com:

"Earlier, Japanese officials told the IAEA that a fuel storage pond had caught fire — an area where used nuclear fuel is kept cool — and that radioactivity was "being released directly into the atmosphere." Long after the fire was extinguished, a Japanese official said the pool might still be boiling, though the reported levels of radiation had dropped dramatically by the end of the day. The radiation releases prompted Japanese officials to issue orders for 140,000 people to seal themselves indoors Tuesday. "

That just sounds like a ringing endorsement of nuclear energy to me. Only an ignorant fool would suggest that we rethink nuclear power. Right?

"Nuclear power only makes sense if you have a weapons arsenal you need to support. "

Some writers point out that having nuclear power _obliges_ a country to militarize its society, in order to protect the plants, waste disposal facilities, transport of fuel, etc. In this way nuclear power functions as a facilitator of authoritarianism, which I feel contributes, if only at a subconscious level, to its allure to many of the pro-nuclear posters here.

In addition to the PM's concerns about safety and terrorism, I would add that there is still no proven and affordable disposal solution known to man.

And not to alarm anyone, but after the disasters in Japan, there has yet to be any discussion of the status of the spent fuel rods that are sitting in cooling ponds at every reactor site. They are stored on site just because there is no known waste disposal solution. And if these cooling pools lose their integrity, as has the reactor cores, the spent fuel rods also pose a huge environmental risk. HUGE!

As you say. Today there is great concern about one of the cooling pools at Fukushima that has lost its coolant, and the spent fuel roads appear to be melting.

Are rubber trees a good investment? Well, that depends on one's perspective, doesn't it. . . ?

Perhaps you could do an internet search on this article:

Monoculture tree plantations are "green deserts" not forests, say activists

Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com

September 19, 2008

or this one:

Where the Rubber Meets the Garden

Jane Qiu

Nature

January, 2009