While many experts can agree that Bangkok is heading
for trouble, there is much debate about when. The looming
chaos may seem far off to some, but for the residents of Khun
Samut Chin, a small fishing community 38 kilometres south of
Bangkok, sea level rise and the realities of climate change have
already shaken the community to its core.
“In Thailand, we never think to protect ourselves until
the problem is staring at us in the face,” says 44-year-old
monk Somnuk Attipanyo, standing in Khun Samut Chin
and extending an open hand out at the Gulf of Thailand, as
if to prove his point. “In Hong Kong and Singapore, they try
to create land because they don’t have enough, but here in
Thailand, we’ve lost our land because we don’t protect it.”
Experts say that 600 kilometres of the Thai coast has
already been lost to climate change, with the Gulf of Thailand
suffering the worst rate of coastal erosion. As the head of the
village’s Buddhist temple Wat Khun Samut Trawat, Somnuk
has been on the frontlines, battling rising water levels that
have devastated the community for over a decade. The village
has seen over a kilometre of land swallowed by the tide over
the past 30 years, taking with it a school, a health centre,
countless homes, and forcing half of the population to leave.
Electricity and telephone poles poking out of the Gulf of
Thailand more than 500 metres from where the shore is today
offer a surreal reminder of a once-thriving community.
“I don’t know the cause of why the water has taken back
the land,” admits Somnuk. “Experts have come here, studied
the land, and have told me it’s related to climate change and
cutting down forests. To be honest, I don’t really understand
the theories and I don’t want to understand them. In life, there
are people who work with concepts and theories in books,
and then there are people who work with their hands on
the ground. The question is what we can do now to help
the situation.”