Closing Thailand's Marine Parks 'Won't Save Coral'

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Closing marine parks 'won't save coral'

By Pongphon Sarnsamak

The Nation

Phuket

The National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department will not close all the marine national parks along the Andaman Sea coast to save damaged coral reefs from bleaching.

"Closing the marine national parks will not help the coral reefs recover from bleaching," the Department's directorgeneral Sunant Arunnopparat said.

The Marine and Coastal Resources Department prepared a report on the coral reef bleaching in the marine national parks and asked the Department of National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation to close them to help their recovery.

Sunant said he had instructed officials to survey the bleached areas and report the findings to him. He will today call on all marine national park heads to meet with University academics and other experts to find out answers to the coral reef bleaching situation.

"I think there is no need to close the marine national parks to relieve the damaged coral. This measure would not help too much at this time," Sunant said.

"We should find other measures to reduce the impact by asking people not to disrupt nature. Closing the parks would cause a lot of impact," he added.

He said prevent tourist to enter into the bleaching areas would be proper measure to recover coral reef from bleaching.

However, some areas surrounded marine national parks where have found severe damaged coral reef by bleaching would be closed.

Marine and Coastal Resources Department yesterday also had brought a group of media to survey coral reef bleaching surrounded KohEl and KohHey in Phuket province.

Niphon Phongsuwan, a marine biologist of Phuket's marine biology centre who head a team, said over 90 percent of coral reef surrounded KohEL were damaged by bleaching and 50 percent of coral reef surrounded by KohHey were destroyed by bleaching. Most of coral that had been damaged are staghorn coral, table coral, and branching coral which located at 5 meters to 10 meters below sea level.

The department has installed an undersea station to monitor the development and recovery of coral reefs.

During a trip to survey the coral reef bleaching at these two islands, a group of foreign tourists swimming and snorkelling around Koh Hey were seen breaking and destroying live coral.

"This bad behaviour was caused by the tour company which did not explain how to be a good tourist. They should explain how to dive in a fashion friendly to the coral reef," Niphon said.

"We must train guides urgently," he added.

The department will organise training for tour guides in three provinces including Krabi, Phangnga, and Phuket next month.

Paitoon Panchaibhum, a director of Marine Resources and Coastal Conservation Center Division 5 said tourists had been seen collecting coral and marine fish in baskets and taking them away as gifts for their friends. His division had installed warning signs in several languages urging tourists not take coral from the sea - but they had been ignored.

-- The Nation 2011-01-20

[travelmann]

Yeah good blame the tourists.......... would be even better for him if could say farang" tourists as w ell. We all know how lovely clean and unspoilt many Thai beaches are dont we???

[BOBBYTIN]

no mention of the fishing industry.i knew all along it was just farangs.

[pacovl46]

those f.....s who break corals or take starfish or whatever should be put in a "nice" thai jail for 3 months!!!

[Pacificperson]

The Director general is making sense, but he needs to take a much tougher with the tourist and their guides. I know what would happen if a tourist or anyone else were caught taking things out of a western National Park.

[Darkman]

those f.....s who break corals or take starfish or whatever should be put in a "nice" thai jail for 3 months!!!

Very harsh response there....

Coral bleaching is a sign of corals responding to stress, which can be induced by any of the following:

• increased (most commonly), or reduced water temperatures.
• increased solar irradiance.
• changes in water chemistry (in particular acidification)
• starvation caused by a decline in zooplankton.
• increased sedimentation (due to silt runoff)
• pathogen infections
• changes in salinity
• wind
• low tide air exposure
• cyanide fishing.

No mention of farangs or the breaking off of a bit of coral.

[mortenaa]

I've observed several tourists stepping on corals myself. It has always been the swimming / snorkeling ones. I've seen groups of Asian tourists in the water snorkeling, creating chaos. Someone hardly able to swim (with floating vests). I told people not to step on the corals, but people seem to lack the understanding they do anything wrong.. I think the responsibility should go back to the organizers. They need to educate their customers BEFORE they step into the waters...

[Kron]

those f.....s who break corals or take starfish or whatever should be put in a "nice" thai jail for 3 months!!!

Very harsh response there....

Coral bleaching is a sign of corals responding to stress, which can be induced by any of the following:

• increased (most commonly), or reduced water temperatures.
• increased solar irradiance.
• changes in water chemistry (in particular acidification)
• starvation caused by a decline in zooplankton.
• increased sedimentation (due to silt runoff)
• pathogen infections
• changes in salinity
• wind
• low tide air exposure
• cyanide fishing.

No mention of farangs or the breaking off of a bit of coral.

I would add that taking of starfish would actually help, certainly this guy

The crown-of-thorns starfish is a voracious coral predator that eats the coral polyps, the organisms that actually build reefs. Overfishing has allowed the starfish population to expand i.e the removal of its predators.

From my own experience of diving in Thailand (20 years), whilst sightings of most large fish has reduced the Parrotfish are still here in high numbers. Whilst they do not eat coral they do rasp algae from it, causing a lot of damage.

The Authorities must enforce the 'no-fishing' policies in the marine parks.