Drive to save Bangkok's old trees takes root

Young Thai professionals join hands to save Bangkok's ecosystem from urban sprawl
Nirmal Ghosh Straits Times 9 Apr 11;

BANGKOK: In my first year in Bangkok in 2003, a pair of giant squirrels would cross my balcony each morning to get to two big old rain trees in an empty plot next door. One day, men with chainsaws chopped down the trees and bulldozed the plot to make way for a hotel. I never saw the squirrels again.

My story is a familiar one in the Thai capital. Increasingly dense construction has crowded out nature in downtown areas, producing more traffic jams because more people with cars live in high-rise buildings. It also creates flooding problems because the plinths of many new buildings are higher than the narrow lanes.

And it destroys the last refuges of urban wildlife, a variety of birds and squirrels that live in the mini-ecosystems of big trees - like the banyan and rain trees.

The germ of a movement to save these trees, however, has now taken root. The Big Tree group was born inside a small design studio on a lane off busy Sukhumvit, when the young Thai designers there noticed several big, old trees at the top of their lane being marked to be chopped down to make way for a carpark of a massive new mall. There were dozens of trees big and small in the sprawling plot; the designers reckoned some were well over 60 years old.

Together with other concerned residents in the area, they approached the plot owner's son to persuade him to change the mall's layout and save the trees. He listened sympathetically, nodded a lot - but one day chopped all the trees down anyway.

That event just four months ago kick-started the group that today - based entirely on Internet social networking - has 13,000 members, with an active core of 30.

'To me, it is a question of protecting the value of a city. Big Tree is a stepping stone to more social or more civic responsibility,' co-founder Pongprom 'Joe' Yamarat, 38, an economist by training, said in an interview.

The group comprises fairly young professionals and not necessarily only misty eyed tree-huggers. Many are designers, architects and lawyers. Almost all are Thais. Every Saturday, they get together and go on a cycle tour of areas in the city, visiting landmark old trees in parks, Buddhist temples, universities and sprawling diplomatic compounds.

Outside these environs, old trees are endangered - mainly by the redevelopment of roads and booming real estate development.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) is generally pro-environment, but under current laws only trees deemed to have economic value - such as teak - are protected from chainsaws. The rest are fair game.

The Big Tree group plans to change that.

It began by simply inviting ideas - and they flew thick and fast. At least one proved a novel move: a contest to find the 'best tree' in Bangkok.

'This is the first time we are doing this (contest),' said Mr Pongprom. 'We want to build awareness first; then we want to push the authorities into planting more trees in the city.'

The contest has drawn an enthusiastic response, with more than 200 trees nominated for the award.

Members can see the nominated trees online and click on them to vote.

There is no paperwork involved, and it hardly costs any money.

Big Tree co-founder Oraya Satabutr, 43, a former English teacher at the elite Thammasat University, said: 'It is encouraging that young people are getting involved because they bring creativity to this.

'The older generation just thinks in terms of seminars and protests and lawsuits.'

One of the nominated trees is an ancient 'lamphu' - a mangrove species - a symbol of what Bangkok once was.

The more than a century-old tree stands in several feet of water at the edge of the Chao Phraya river at the park called Santichai Prakarn. Once there were many like it; the district of Banglamphu - the historic heart of Bangkok - was named after these trees.

The group members gathered at the spot on a recent Saturday to start their bicycle tour. A woman in her 30s - a teaching assistant - who was not even a member but had read about the event in the newspaper, turned up with her bicycle.

So did Dr Oy Kanjanavanit, an early member of the group. She also runs the Green World Foundation, which tries to make the general public conscious of their immediate environment and monitor it.

'It's about ecological literacy,' she explained.

Eventually, about 40 members turned up. Many brought their own bicycles; others used the BMA's bicycles at a stand at the park where one can 'rent' a bicycle by depositing one's passport.

Deputy Governor of Bangkok Porntep Techapai-bul, who is pro-cycling, joined them as they wound their way through the roads of the old city, visiting giant peepul and tamarind trees.

At one park, eight members linked hands to show how broad across the base a giant, old peepul tree was. In this park, two generations ago, royalty once threw extravagant parties, with guests relaxing under the shade of this same tree.