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Ko Samui, Paradise Restored by Regreening and Reblueing: A Concept Paper for a Proposal to the Ko Samui Government, Business, Tourism, and Environmental Communities October 25 2005 By:
Thomas Sarkisian
Cholnakochorn Anumart
Thomas J. Goreau, PhD
Wolf Hilbertz, KO SAMUI, PARADISE? We propose a multi-part program to restore Ko Samui’s coral reefs, forests, hillsides, and water quality to make it a real paradise for tourists and residents again. Ko Samui’s financial success is linked to marketing itself as paradise. Transparent glittering waterfalls leap down mountains clad with virgin jungle to fall into a crystal clear reef waters teeming with corals and fish. The visitor sees a miniature version of this lost paradise in the manicured garden between the fountain and the swimming pool, but loses it as soon as he steps out of the resort. KO SAMUI, PARADISE LOST? Hills stripped of vegetation meet his eye, the ugly gashed hillsides bulldozed and bleeding masses of soil that clog every road and gutter, blocking all drains until the mud, mixed with sewage, floods all the roads and people must walk or drive through this noxious, toxic mix every time it rains, while it pours towards the sea, where it ends by smothering the reef in mud and killing the corals and fish. Few tourists who know the difference with a real paradise will come back. This steadily unfolding and all too real ecological nightmare will bring Ko Samui’s efforts to present itself as paradise to an end, unless Ko Samui makes a serious effort to restore the paradise that was lost. KO SAMUI: PARADISE RESTORED? We propose to once again make the waters blue, the reefs full of corals and fish, and hillsides green with flowers and beautiful and useful plants again. This is possible, but will not be easy unless all sectors of the community unite to make Ko Samui a more beautiful and safe place to live. Looking at Ko Samui from the bottom-up we suggest multi-part project to grow corals, fish habitat, mariculture, and ecotourism attractions in the sea, while simultaneously cleaning up the water by planting terraces of the world’s best erosion control plant, Vetiver zizanoides, to hold back the water and soil on hillsides and create terraces for agriculture, coastal erosion control Zoysia grass along beaches, and flowering, fruit, and shade trees along river banks and roadsides. The result will be a more beautiful and far safer Ko Samui that will make tourists want to come back, and local residents thankful for living in a real paradise, not a fake one. PLANNING PARADISE? Clearly defined projects to restore the rich beauty of Ko Samui’s land and waters are proposed below. At the same time as these action programs, urgent changes in local zoning are needed. Uncontrolled construction is causing massive erosion that is clogging all roads and drains, making people walk and live in contaminated wastes, and killing coral reefs. Clear zoning plans are needed to restrict development, ensure suitable drainage of all construction sites and developed sited to prevent, strictly fining any violators who cause soil and rock to wash into drains, rivers, and the ocean, and ensure that all sewage is collected and treated to tertiary level to prevent human health risks and killing the reef through over fertilization of weed algae. No development should be permitted that does not prevent soil and nutrient loss from the site. Doing so will really help make Ko Samui a paradise again, because after the rich native forest was destroyed for coconut plantations around 50 years ago, the soil washed into the sea and killed the reef, and the forest has never recovered because the soil is so poor, since it now lacks essential nutrients and minerals. Restoring these nutrients to the soil is the best way to make the island green and beautiful again, not throwing the nutrients away where they kill the coral reefs, fisheries, and ecotourism. All developments should be paid for by fees for water-use that include full cycle costs including sewage treatment and nutrient removal built into supply costs and mandated by all users of water. PROPOSED PROJECTS 1. CORAL REEF RESTORATION We will grow large Biorock coral reefs next to and along the reefs at Chaweng and Lamai and other sites to create snorkeling and diving attractions that increase the area of reef, take pressure of existing reef, increase fish populations, and protect the shoreline from erosion. Projects will be built in annual increments of 100 meters. These areas will be demarcated recreational zones marked by buoys, with no boat traffic or fishing. These will be an extension of existing and new proposed projects for fisheries habitat restoration and ecotourism with government, hotel, tourism, diving, and community groups in Ko Samui. 2. FISHERIES RESTORATION We will grow large Biorock reefs in other parts of Ko Samui, including Nathon and other sites, to create reef habitat to increase fish and shellfish populations for fishermen. These areas will be zoned for fishing, and recreational diving and snorkeling will not be permitted. These projects will form a continuation of existing projects. 3. EROSION AND DRAINAGE CONTROL We will initiate a community nursery to produce Vetiver zizanoides (“Khus”, a grass related to lemon grass but with very long roots, which never becomes a weed) for a planting project to provide plants to be mandated for soil erosion control on all development sites. Planted in a row, these plants stop erosion better then any other plant, and by holding back soil, create terraces on which other useful plants can grow. They increase water infiltration into the soil, reducing flash flooding below. We will urge the community to develop strong planning laws mandating strict erosion controls on all developments, and strong fines for those shown to affect drains, gutters, surface and ocean waters. We urge use of Khus terracing on clearcut hillsides to hold the soil in place to grow a rich diversity of fruit trees, flowering trees, vegetables, and other valuable plants and restore the lost forests of the Ko Samui hillsides. 4. NUTRIENT CONTROL At present almost no septic sewage system treats sewage to remove the nutrients from flowing into the sea. The result is masses of algae overgrowing and killing corals. A plan must be devised to get funds to capture and treat all sewage generated on the island and recycle these nutrients on land, without polluting the sea. Applying conventional treated effluents to Khus terraces planted with flowers would restore hills and create a flower industry for a paradise island. A comprehensive plan will need to be developed to map all the sources of nutrients to Ko Samui coastal waters and ensure that all land-based sources affecting them are effectively recycled on land. 5. REGREENING AND REBLUEING PARADISE To make healthy coral reefs full of fish for tourists and fishermen will require a large scale commitment to make the ocean blue again. The rich reefs all around Ko Samui are a rich testament to what we have recently lost, and how large they would be if we restored them. To do so we must keep the waters clean, and prevent the soil washing onto the reef. To re-blue the waters we must re-green the land by planting plants that hold the soil and nutrients back and turn them into flowers, fruits, and other valuable plants. This commitment to restore the reefs and forests and make Samui more beautiful for all must be joined by a visible public effort to plant flowers and beautiful trees all along Ko Samui that it really looks like paradise again, and tourists are attracted to come back again and again for the beauty and quality of their visit to Paradise. 6. SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FOR PARADISE Sustaining Ko Samui’s future will require strict cycling and reuse of water, it will also require new sources of energy. Large amounts of tidal energy are found in currents near Ko Sanui, Ko Phangan, and Ko Tao and smaller nearby islands. We propose to make current meter measurements at these sites to assess their potential for tidal energy production using Gorlov helical turbines. 7. EDUCATING PARADISE. All environmental improvement projects will be filmed and shown as documentaries on the local television station. These will show the results of each project and the benefits achieved, and will be available in Thai and in English, for showing to schoolchildren, community groups, tourists, etc, locally, nationally, and internationally. 8. RESTORING PARADISE. Ko Samui is on an uncontrolled rush to development that is sacrificing it’s last forests and reefs. Sustainable development to restore the island’s natural resources, on which its reputation as paradise is based, will need new structures to focus on environmental restoration on an island-wide basis. If this is not done, Ko Samui will lose out in competition with hundreds of island “paradises” that take their environmental quality and standards of living seriously. An independent umbrella organization for island wide environmental protection, restoration, and management should be established to coordinate such projects with the island Government and all the sectoral groups concerned with environmental quality, including hotel, tourism, community, and fishing groups. This should be an all-inclusive group, because environmental quality affects all inhabitants, regardless of who they are, and the solutions need to be tackled by all together to have effect. It is therefore important to coordinate such a group independently of any special interest. This group should ensure that efforts by government, NGOs, and sectoral groups meet the common need to restore Ko Samui back to the paradise it was, and ensure a sustainable economic future through re-blueing and re-greening the island. Ko Samui could market itself as the island that reinvented paradise rather than losing it like so many other islands ravaged by uncontrolled and unsustainable development, but continuing to falsely call themselves paradises. |
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