Thailand
Ko Lanta
"The sustainable opportunity for Krabi’s development and future"
Ko Lanta: The sustainable opportunity for Krabi’s development and future
Stories & Photos by Watjanaphol Srichumpuang
Landscape area of Lanta Bay, Lanta District, Krabi Province.
Ko Lanta in Krabi Province, landscape strategy for strengthening the ability to handle and adjust socially, economically and the landscape area at Phang Nga Bay, Thailand.
Ko Lanta is located at the Andaman sea of Thailand. The landscape of the area consists of coastal areas, beaches, islands, seagrass, mangroves, canals and rivers connected from the mountains and the sea. Therefore, there is high biodiversity and an abundance of many important ecosystems.
Ko Lanta is located in the southern part of Krabi Province. It has a total area of 220,000 rai. The north side is adjacent to Nuea Khlong District in Krabi Province. The east side is adjacent to Khlong Thom District in Krabi Province and Sikao District in Trang Province. The west and south sides are adjacent to the Andaman Bay. There are 53 islands and there are 6 islands that have people living there. There are 3 big islands arranged from north to south: Klang island, Lanta Noi island and Lanta Yai, which accounted for approximately 40 percent of the total area and the left are the satellite islands and water area.
Most of the western area of Ko Lanta are mangroves restored by the communities to be the abundant area that can be responsible for the support of the overall ecosystem and people’s way of life. The highland forests that are watersheds are still fertile, divided to be the national forest area of 181,565 rai and the mangroves area of 50,373.67 rai. The terrain is generally mountainous and flat areas are located at the foothills and the seashore.
There are 3 main canals at Lanta Yai island; Chak canal, Nam Chuet canal and Hin canal, which water flows all year round. The resources of Koh Lanta ecological area are fishery resources, which are the main resources that have been supporting the livelihoods of the island's people for a long time since the beginning of the settlement of people who settled on Koh Lanta until today. Although the overall condition of Koh Lanta has shifted towards the tourism sector, where marine wildlife resources are still a key factor in attracting tourists to the area. At present, Koh Lanta District is divided into 5 sub-districts; Ko Lanta Yai sub-district, Ko Lanta Noi sub-district, Ko Klang sub-district, Sala Dan sub-district and Klong Yang sub-district.
The guidelines for overall urban development in the future of Lanta community, which Lanta villager networks believes that they will lead to further development in all aspects of the community, is in line with Lanta Go Green (the sustainable tourism development strategy of Ko Lanta). It is the strategy created by the cooperation between the private, civil society, the government and the local government agencies at the provincial level sectors to work under Krabi sustainable development strategy.
The strategy derived the idea from the provincial joint mobility agreement under the name of “Krabi Go green” (Krabi tourism development towards sustainability), which is upgraded to be the vision of Krabi Province. The “Ko Lanta is the target area for pilot implementation of the declaration which has been jointly defined at the provincial-level strategy by Krabi provincial strategy” consists of;
1) Developing the tourism to be the Green Tourism and increase the potential of it to meet the international standards.
2) Raising the capacity of agricultural production and the comprehensive product processing, together with developing of clean industries and alternative energy.
3) Enhancing people's quality of life towards a livable society and adapting to changing trends.
4) Conserving and restoring natural resources and the environment in a sustainable way.
Local
tourism
The guidelines for overall urban development in the future of Lanta community, which Lanta villager networks believes that they will lead to further development in all aspects of the community, is in line with Lanta Go Green (the sustainable tourism development strategy of Ko Lanta). It is the strategy created by the cooperation between the private, civil society, the government and the local government agencies at the provincial level sectors to work under Krabi sustainable development strategy.
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Theerapoj Kasirawat said that he was born and grew up at Ko Lanta. In the past, the overview of Ko Lanta was generally a rice field. It consists of beaches, coconut plantations, wagon tracks and rice fields all the way to the foothills. Ko Lanta has stood out for its serenity from the past to the present and it consisted of communities included various of ethnicities such as Thai-Muslim, Thai-Chinese, Thai-Buddhist and Urak Lawoi people, who moved and settled on Ko Lanta for more than 400 years. The first ethnic group who settled down in the area is Urak Lawoi people, who usually reserved the living area around the seaside bay. However, the culture has moved from seasons and the effects caused by the power of the Thai government in the past that made Urak Lawoi people had to relocate often.
Most of the original settlements were therefore occupied by later settlers, Muslim, Chinese and Thai-Buddhist from the mainland, respectively. At the present, the living area on Ko Lanta is shared by people from various ethnicities and cultures. Most local people are Thai-Muslim, Thai-Chinese, ThaiBuddhist and Urak Lawoi people, respectively.
In the past, Theerapoj Kasirawat was the representative of Ko Lanta community networks in the beginning period, around the time of the joining against coal power plants in Krabi Province. He was responsible for being the spokesperson for the Andaman coastal communities and became the spokesperson for people in Krabi Province from now on. He also mentioned the vision and the potential of Ko Lanta in various dimensions, which will become the important fundamentals for Krabi Province in the future such as pollution-free tourism, how to use the abundant resources in a cost-effective and sustainable way for the self-sustaining communities of Ko Lanta and the entire Andaman coast of Phang Nga Bay. Moreover, nowadays many groups and many people from various ethnicities of Ko Lanta communities started to see the value of these things more in the same way. They started to have ideas in the public sector more and more and they learned to offer the community’s ideas during the seminar and the idea exchanging session. Therefore, it helped the public sector to play a role and increase more weight of confidence in the community itself because people in the community knew their conditions best such as its geography, resources and better understanding of the ecosystem of the area.
“Nowadays, all projects were made by the Ko Lanta community itself such as pollution-free tourism and many other ideas have a possibility to be true in the future. They can be useful for the Ko Lanta community, Krabi Province and also support the Krabi Go Green idea.”
At the present, Krabi Province has run the project with the idea of Krabi Go Green slowly but sustainably. Ko Lanta’s image became the model of the management by having the distinctive point of the cooperation between the private sector and the community to help drive each other all the time.
Theerapoj gave the example of the energy management,“Many hotels in Ko Lanta switched to use more of their own solar power, which reflects to Ko Lanta Go Green idea, by working together with the Ko Lanta community tourism networks. It helped reduce the cost, make more benefits to the business and the community tourism networks started to be accepted and cooperated with the private sector better respectively.”
“Nowadays, all projects were made by the Ko Lanta community itself such as pollution-free tourism and many other ideas have a possibility to be true in the future. They can be useful for the Ko Lanta community, Krabi Province and also support the Krabi Go Green idea.”
Theerapoj Kasirawat
Narathorn Hongthong, Chairman of Ban Thung Yee Peng Community Based Tourism Group (The model community in Ko Lanta)
Narathorn told us about Ban Thung Yee Peng community that the sustainable community tourism is like a medicine that heals the community in terms of social, economic and environmental balance. It is also like healing people in the society to live together happily. In the past, many things that have disappeared started to return to Ban Thung Yee Peng today.
Ban Thung Yee Peng Tourism Group spent over 20 years establishing the local villagers’ groups. After the Tsunami crisis in Thailand, the community helped each other to restore their mangroves and take care of its ecosystem for more than 10 years. Later, under the right conditions and the fertility conditions of the mangrove forests that have improved markedly, they had the permission from the Forest Department to manage their own mangroves area by their own community. Subsequently, the government passed the Community Forest Act.
Until today, Thung Yee Peng mangroves became the model of permanent community care. Apart from being one of the top mangroves with best condition in Thailand, Thung Yee Peng is also the model of ecotourism because the community has increased its ability to manage their mangroves tourism that creates the view of the community economy approach through the clarity in the management of the community networks itself.
Speaking of soft power, Thung Yee Peng ecosystem is also another funamentory and being used for the view of sustainable environment management for a long time, and the community creates the protection to fight with the structural problems of the capital system that will surge in the future.
Matters other than marine ecology, there are still many indigenous plants in the community that have been overlooked, abandoned and left to disappear from the effects of using chemicals or farming. The question is what we can do to save those plants, to use them sustainably and to increase the propagation of these important and diverse endemic plants.
Lam Peng tree is another example of local plants found generally on the waterfront. They have been abandoned and being destroyed to change the area for community monoculture farming. Lam Peng’s young leaves are edible in a meal by quickly boiled in hot water, boiled in coconut milk and also developed to be the healthy food by the villagers to be the tea for drinking with many healthy benefits. It also has the sweet taste from the sea breeze. This is an example of how the environment and tourism management works together by having their local plants to create more revenue to the community sustainably.
The strength of Thung Yee Peng plays an important role in balancing its natural abundance with tourism, create good images to Ko Lanta and Krabi Province and became the model for other current communities to learn and follow.
People movement is another outstanding thing about the Thung Yee Peng community, which is from the Ban Buak Project. It is the project to create strength for the people in the community and create sustainable community revenue. At present, external capital groups have gradually creeped in after the impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that had affected the overall economic system. Land is the primary goal of external capital to lease or purchase from the community. Educating and supporting self-generating income will allow the community to learn how to earn money from tourism and make an experiment from their knowledge and their abilities of family members by themselves such as opening new restaurants, coffee shops and Thai massage etc. In addition to enabling people in the community to not lose income, they can also maintain the land and manage the local resources sustainably by the community itself.
Narathorn said that the current difficulty is a race against time. Our community networks need to start working more proactively towards the villagers, create knowledge and opportunities to generate their own income for the Thung Yee Peng community in the future.
Matters other than marine ecology, there are still many indigenous plants in the community that have been overlooked, abandoned and left to disappear from the effects of using chemicals or farming. The question is what we can do to save those plants, to use them sustainably and to increase the propagation of these important and diverse endemic plants.
Narathorn Hongthong, Chairman of Ban Thung Yee Peng Community
Ban Thung Yee Peng Tourism Group spent over 20 years establishing the local villagers’ groups. After the Tsunami crisis in Thailand, the community helped each other to restore their mangroves and take care of its ecosystem for more than 10 years. Later, under the right conditions and the fertility conditions of the mangrove forests that have improved markedly, they had the permission from the Forest Department to manage their own mangroves area by their own community. Subsequently, the government passed the Community Forest Act.
