Thailand: Thai Land Development Department Promotes Sustainable Land Use

While planning for my SOIL Fund trip, I got in contact with Dr. Samran Sambatpanit, Past President of the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation (WASWAC or WASWC).  Dr. Sambatpanit has a reputation as a sort of godfather of erosion and sediment control in Southeast Asia.  Since he is based in Bangkok, I inquired if he could recommend places in Thailand to visit to observe serious erosion and sedimentation problems and/or erosion and sediment control projects.  Dr. Sambatpanit advised me to make contact with Chinapatana Sukvibool when I attended the Debris Flow Workshop in China.  Mr. Sukvibool (Deputy President of WASWAC and Director of the Soil & Water Conservation Research and Development Division of the Thai Land Development Department) would be attending the workshop with Winai Wangpimool of the Thai Department of Water Resources.




Chinapatana Sukvibool in Khao Yai National Park

Chinapatana Sukvibool (hearafter referred to by his nickname “Chinapat” – pronounced “CHEE-na-pot”) was interested in learning of my upcoming visit to Thailand following the China Debris Flow Workshop.  He graciously offered to take me on a tour of some areas north and east of Bangkok which he thought would be of interest to me.  Chinapat was able to secure permission from the Director of the Land Development Department for our proposed trip.  So on Wednesday, 22 August, I met Chinapat and our driver for a three-day trip.    

 

This vetiver plant
displayed in the Soil Museum
has 6-foot-long fibrous roots.

Actually, before we set out on the trip, Chinapat took me on a tour of one of the more unusual museums I’ve ever seen:  the Land Development Department’s Soil Museum.  I know soil sounds like a rather “dry” focus for a museum, but it actually featured very informative and visually pleasing displays of soils from all over Thailand including soil profiles of the 240+ soil series in the country.  There were educational displays describing the physical characteristics of soils as well as the organisms and organic matter which make up the biological content of soil.  I was interested in displays concerning soils which are poor for agriculture, erosion problems, types of bedrock in Thailand which provide parent material for the development of soil, and types of insect mounds.  I learned that Thailand’s first soil survey was initiated in 1935 by an American soil scientist, Dr. R.L. Pendleton.  I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that the present Thai king (Bhumibol Adulyadej) has taken an active role in protecting Thailand’s soil resources.  


 

Driving north and east from Bangkok on modern expressways, we left the flat coastal plain and entered hilly terrain and low forested mountains.  Our first stop was the Khao Yai National Park which sits on a 1000-meter-high (over 3000 feet) lava plateau surrounded by lowlands.  The park is 2166km² (833 miles²) in area and receives nearly 2000mm (80 inches) of rain per year.  The generous rainfall supports three types of evergreen forest and a mixed deciduous forest. 

The Khao Yai Forest is covered by thin soils over volcanic bedrock.

The soils hold little moisture and are easily eroded where the gradient is steep.

Nevertheless, they support a lush deciduous and bamboo forests.

Khao Yai National Park is home to abundant wildlife.

The Haew Suwat Waterfall (20 meters high) is located in an area of the park
where a resistant volcanic bedrock ledge overlies weakly consolidated rock fragments.

From the park, we travelled north to the town of Pak Chong where we had cheap but comfortable accommodations for the night.  Along the way, I saw some of the effects of acquisition of farmland by wealthy urban Thais.  The following photos illustrate the consequences.


Why isn’t contour plowing used here to conserve topsoil? Chinapat speculated

that the farmer may be growing crops for an absentee landlord and

doesn’t care about erosion.  After all, it takes less time to plow straight furrows.

 

Thais from the cities are buying up farmland to build vacation homes.

One might argue that this gated, faux-Italian community is attractive

but it has permanently removed land from agricultural production.

The following morning, we drove a short distance to the Development Department’s Center for Research and Technology.  A focus of the Center is to teach sufficiency and sustainability to farmers.  For example, the staff tries to get farmers to adopt agroforestry with mixed crops.  Thus, instead of relying on a single crop such as bananas or sugarcane, farmers create a partial canopy by planting scattered trees which provide fruit or are valuable for their wood.  Below the canopy, they grow shade-tolerant crops, and in the open areas, crops which require lots of sunshine are cultivated.  In this way, they produce a variety of food for their own consumption and are less vulnerable to crop failures or crashing prices for one monoculture crop.  Crop rotation is also stressed to prevent soil depletion and reduce dependence on chemical fertilizers.

If you read my post on the East Bali Poverty Project, you may remember that the Desa Ban community in Bali is using vetiver grass to hold the soil in place where cultivation takes place on steep hillsides.  The Thai Development Department is also encouraging the use of vetiver.  They have experimented with a number of varieties some of which do better in highland climates and others that are more suited to lowlands.  The beauty of vetiver is not only its long fibrous roots which greatly reduce soil erosion.  This tropical grass cannot spread to areas where it is not wanted because it is sterile.  It only reproduces from cuttings which must be planted by hand.

 

Employees at the Center for Research and Technology
bundling vetiver cuttings to distribute to farmers.

From Pak Chong, we headed south through an area of forested mountains and locally known as the “Switzerland of Thailand.”  Chinapat had our driver stop at a roadside stand so he could buy locally-produced orchids to take home.  Continuing southwest on Highway 304, we stopped for lunch at Kabin Buri before reaching the Khao Hin Sorn Royal Development Study Center in Chachoengsao Province.

Earlier, I mentioned the Thai king’s interest in protecting the country’s soil resources.  In the late 1970s, a wealthy landowner donated some badly eroded and denuded land in northern Chachoengsao Province to the king hoping he could improve it by building a palace there.  Instead, the king saw an opportunity to show Thais how degraded lands could be restored with careful management.  The landowner agreed and the Royal Development Study Center was born.  The original 42 hectare (ha) site (105 acres) has since been expanded to 302ha (755 acres).  The Land Development Department became the coordinating agency enlisting the help of other governmental and academic institutions in building a model farm that demonstrated how conservation of soil, water, and vegetation can restore soil productivity.  Nine reservoirs have been constructed to impound and distribute water from the adjacent river.  Earthen dikes slow runoff and crops and trees are planted in rows along the contour.  Vetiver grass is used to hold soil and retain moisture.  Compost and organic matter replace chemical fertilizers.

 

Terrace protected by vetiver at the Royal Development Study Center

The Center has developed a new farming system which fits well with Thailand’s tropical climate.  The system proportions farm land as follows:  30% of the farm is surface water, 30% consists of rice paddy fields, 30% is for appropriate dry land farming, and 10% is residential.  Even the surface water is productive as the Center has developed a program using ponds to rear fish and frogs for human consumption.  The Center also works with other innovative farming practices and crops such as hydroponics (placing plant roots in water with added mineral nutrients but using no soil) and ornamental plants (such as those orchids Chinapat purchased earlier along the highway).  
  

Idyllic landscape at the Royal Development Study Center.

Thai farmers visit the Study Center to learn sustainable farming techniques.  The Center provides them with cuttings or seed for indigenous plants/crops to take home.  The Center’s philosophy is to transfer technology which is based on simplicity.  In this way, no investment in heavy machinery is required, and farmers can more easily become economically successful using techniques that are compatible with the natural environment instead of selling out to large agribusiness concerns or second home developers.   The Center’s practices have been extended to 15 adjacent villages and hopefully will continue to influence an ever-expanding area of rural Thailand. 

School groups visit the Center to learn about sustainable agriculture.

Leaving the Study Center, we continued southwest, then turned south on Highway 3138 to Rayang on the coast east of Bangkok.  This is an area of sugar cane and cassava cultivation as well as large industrial plants.  I realized I hadn’t seen a traffic cop during our entire trip and our lead-footed driver hadn’t either.  However, his speed had slowed somewhat since our first day out when I saw the speedometer on our Toyota Hilux pickup approaching 140 (86mph).  I complained to Chinapat who got the driver to slow down.  Ever since my brush with death at the hands of a crazy driver in West Africa in 1990, I’ve become very intolerant of the excesses of drivers in developing countries.

From Rayang, we headed west to Pattaya where we spent the night.  I was not impressed with this city of 100,000 (metropolitan area:  1,000,000+).  Wikipedia describes Pattaya as “a beach resort popular with tourists and expatriates.”  The skinny beach has rock groins perpendicular to the shore to protect what little sand remains after commercial development and a road have destroyed most of the original beach.  Just back from the high tide line are rows of beach loungers and umbrellas.  High rise condo and apartment buildings are in abundance.  According to the billboards, you can get a condo in one of these buildings for less than 3,000,000 baht (US$100,000) which makes the area very attractive to sun-worshiping, Western retirees on limited budgets who don’t mind crowds.  Given Thailand’s reputation as a sex-Mecca, Pattaya also seems to attract scores of English-speaking, middle-aged lager-louts hoping for a good time with attractive young Thai women who, in turn, are searching for economic prosperity. 

    

Beach at Pattaya with high rise towers in the distance.

 

From Pattaya, we returned to Bangkok stopping at another Development Department research center.  That night in Bangkok, Chinapat arranged for us to have dinner with Samran Sambatpanit, the Past President of WASWAC, whom I mentioned earlier.  Although retired, Samran is still very active in WASWAC and with soil and water conservation issues in general.  We agreed that cooperation between WASWAC and the International Erosion Control Association (IECA) would be good for both organizations.  Although IECA and WASWAC are both concerned with erosion and sediment control, they don’t really compete for members because IECA is more focused on applied techniques on large construction projects while WASWAC is more involved with academic research and rural development, particularly sustainable agriculture.  Therefore, the two organizations complement (and have much to learn from) each other.  Samran, Chinapat, and I agreed that we should find ways for the two organizations to cooperate such as joint conferences, reduced IECA membership fees for WASWAC members in developing countries, and promotion of each other’s activities in our respective publications and websites.  It’s a theme I heard repeated from European and Chinese WASWAC members when I attended a WASWAC conference in Serbia the following month. 

 

At the last stop before our return to Bangkok, I saw vetiver

providing protective, moisture-holding circles around young trees.