Large numbers of people here in the dry northeast region of Thailand bordering Laos and Cambodia, a region known as Isaan, are facing the consequences of changes in the natural rhythms of the Mekong River wrought by the construction in recent years of dams upstream in China and Laos.
Category: Thailand
Feel the people’s power flow
This two-part series explores people living along the Mekong and its tributaries who have embarked on a crusade to save their source of life and livelihoods
Sweden supports Thai partnership for plastic reduction
With support from the Swedish government, the Solid Waste Management Association, Thailand (SWAT) is launching its Plastic Footprint Reduction Project to reduce ocean plastic pollution
Mekong River: Chinese Dam Releases Threaten Downstream Ecosystems, Livelihoods
Parts of the Mekong River in Laos have risen suddenly during the dry season by as much as 12 cm in one day, threatening fish stocks, wildlife and aquatic plants vital to livelihoods.
Mekong Dams Bring Hardship to Thai Villagers
Dams have subverted the Mekong ecosystem, bringing drought during the monsoon season and high waters when it should be dry. That has forever changed the lives of those who depend on the river for food and work in northeastern Thailand, a poor region bordering Laos and Cambodia. Vijitra Duangdee reports for VOA news, from Nong Khai, Thailand.
The Mekong’s calling you, Sue Perkins
Sue learned that the local Tibetan Chinese have a deep reverence for the Mekong and refrain from damaging or polluting the river so that folks downstream can also enjoy “clean drinking water”.
Inside Thailand’s fight against toxic annual wildfires – ‘it’s just getting worse and worse’
We are told during our visit to one that about 1,000 fire fronts are burning in the area.
PM slammed over clean air bill decision
These two bills are a clean air management bill initiated by 12,000 people in a signature campaign and proposed to parliament on July 13 last year; and a bill on transporting and discharging toxic substances into the environment proposed by the Move Forward Party.
Report attributes 32,000 premature deaths in Thailand to air pollution
The report cites the PM2.5 pollution particles as the main culprit as particles in that size range are the most likely to travel deeply into the respiratory tract, reaching the lungs.
Environment minister dives in to see Pattaya’s sorry coral reefs for himself
Scuba divers have criticized Pattaya’s reefs for decades, bemoaning the abuse they’ve taken from pollution, fishing boat anchors and “sea walkers”, who are untrained divers using surface-supplied air to walk on the ocean bottom. Recent photos showed tourist sea walkers picking up and moving coral, which can be killed simply by being touched.