Putting the King's advice into practice
Thailand is blessed with a knowledgeable and sagacious monarch who has personally conceived, nurtured and supported more than 3,000 innovative projects intended to benefit each and every loyal subject, setting an inspiring example for one and all.
One of His Majesty the King’s most impressive contributions to help solve the complex problems related to flood management is known as the ‘monkey’s cheeks’ (kaem ling). Based on childhood memories, His Majesty observed that most monkeys, when given bananas, first store them in their mouths, then gradually chew and swallow them. This metaphorical model, intended to help alleviate the annual monsoon overflow, aims to temporarily store excessive levels of rising water during heavy rains and afterwards, draining canals and watergates, flushing the excess out to the sea.
Suggested strategic options to control the flooding in Bangkok and upcountry have mainly focused on building more dykes to prevent overflow, enlarging existing canals, digging up new ones and constructing reservoirs at various sites where appropriate. In 1995, an experimental monkey cheeks project was successfully undertaken in Thon Buri, and subsequently replicated in dozens of provinces. Presently, the likelihood of extreme rainfall and severe weather disasters has been significantly increased by rising greenhouse gas levels related to climate change, causing havoc to predictions, and calling for adjustment to nature-related conditions and accommodation to rapidly evolving information technology demands.
Thai society has become increasingly urbanised and prosperous, whereas the rural environment has deteriorated, resulting in abusive overuse and misuse of valuable natural resources and an inequitable gap between rich and poor, haves and have nots, agriculture and industry, overdeveloped greedy and underprivileged needy, top-down Bangkok-centric power and bottom-up decentralised local community authority.
The daunting challenge for water conservation and management planners is how best to implement and expand His Majesty’s sufficiency approach in order to ensure sustainable development. The key objective of shared information technology theory is to reinvent policy guidelines that are eco-friendly and respectfully perceptive of nature, by empowering rural cooperatives to utilise state-of-the-art decision-making techniques, with brainstorming from all parties involved, regarding crop production, processing, marketing, education, health, social welfare and fair trade.
Charles Frederickson
Bangkok
