Burning of the land has to be stopped once and for all

I went to the South for a month to escape the smog in the North. You could barely see across the street at the end of February. 

I then returned to Chiang Rai. It is as bad as it was when I left. It wasn’t just the North either. Central Thailand was bad too, all the way down to Ratchaburi.

The government told the governors to make it stop and put on pressure all the way down to the village headmen. This is two weeks ago and there were still fires burning everywhere on the way back from the South.

There hasn’t been much of anything said about the other aspects of this ecological horror. Not just our population’s health, but also the utter destruction of great tracts of land. Southeastern Nan looks like the moon – not a tree standing, just a smouldering ruin for mile after mile.

And still they burn on. They will grow a few crops on this land, but then it will erode. Nan was a beautiful place. 

An average high school student should be able to tell you also about the connection between burning and flooding. 

It appears the government doesn’t seem to care about its people, or it is entirely too ignorant and self absorbed to do anything. They need to demand an end to this once and for all. Not a suggestion but a law with teeth in it. 

Farmers have to be taught a different way – composting and different crops. Things that take awhile and keep you in one place. Like rubber, coffee and fruit trees. No more corn – it destroys the air with its refuse and ruins the soil. Rice is good and doesn’t require burning.

Composting will improve the soil way more than ash. No more burning, only composting. Foragers caught burning the mountains need to be treated with swift and draconian methods. What they do to collect a few mushrooms and scare up endangered game is a crime against nature and man, and should be called what it is, arson. Any land burned, no matter by whom, should not be allowed to be planted on for a year. 

Once this ignorant and foolish practice has ended, we will need a major reforestation programme to go hand in hand with flood control. If we have a good, solid rainy season again this year, the flooding will be far worse than last year. If this severe problem is not addressed immediately, the consequences for Thailand will be quite grim.

I am sending a petition to everyone I know. My wife has sent it to about 600 Thais. We need to somehow get on every computer in Thailand. People from all over the world are signing it. But we need about a million more signatures.

How can we increase the Facebook likes? It would be great if we could get it to go viral somehow. The petition should go to the heads of tourism, the PM and all the governors of the North, Northeast and Central provinces.

What more can I do to help?

Tony Milton

Upcountry Bungalows