by Michele Zack

Somchai, a 12-year-old boy, places his face against a tree, closes his eyes and listens for the music of the forest. Although he lives only 15 minutes away by car, this is his first overnight camping trip, and his first experience in environmental education.

Kao, a 16-year-old schoolgirl in navy skirt and sailor blouse, explains a chart illustrating the connection between mangrove forests and underwater seagrass colonies off the coast. Her classroom is a platform above a mangrove reforestation project, her audience, 40 note-taking, public-school 6th graders, including Somchai.

That evening around the campfire, a few fishermen, forestry officials and a village headman share knowledge of the area's natural history along with some old sea shanties. The weekend will change forever the way these children see their local forest and coastal areas: they will understand that they and their families will be the losers if these fragile environments deteriorate. They will see that conservation efforts must begin with themselves and their friends – that expecting the government to do this job is unrealistic. Most important, they will learn how to save Thailand's natural resources.

What They Learn at Camp

The program is directed by Chaiyong Phumphrabu, a youthful, soft-spoken environmentalist who is teaching children living near forests and shorelines in Thailand's Eastern region to value and protect these vanishing natural gifts. Through an expanding program of sea and forest camps in Chon Buri, Rayong and Chantaburi provinces, he has reached over 16,000 primary and high school children since 1987.

Members of one club gained the Prime Minister's attention last year when they petitioned him to protect students in Map Ta Put, Chon Buri, where a factory was belching harmful chemicals directly into their classrooms. Because of media attention, the student letter and other complaints, the Prime Minister ordered an enquiry which led to an order to clean up or face closure. While the case is not over yet, offending companies have purchased $3 million in emissions control equipment, to be installed by this summer. The student club is monitoring the situation, and will keep up the pressure.

Getting Waste Water Plants Turned On

"We have come up with many plans, such as replanting mangrove forests and other trees, and organizing volunteer student groups to work on environmental projects over the holidays," says Somchit, a 15-year-old officer in one of the clubs in Chantaburi. Teachers and forestry officials help students make contact with the authorities to help them. For example, student delegations recently urged several large resort operators in Pattaya to actually switch on their waste water treatment facilities. Typically, hotels comply with environmental regulations by installing the plants, but then save electricity by not using them.

The clubs have linked up with the longer established Yad Fon (Rain Drop) Association led by Pisit Chansnoh, whose work with fishermen to save mangrove forests is nationally known. Since Yad Fon's headquarters are in Trang Province, the network of clubs and related teachers' associations now covers a large swath of Eastern Thailand – hundreds of kilometers from the Eastern Seaboard to the south.

The approach is quietly revolutionary. For most children participating, it is the first environmental education they have received, the first time they have experienced nature for such a prolonged period, and their first training in actively solving problems. Thailand is a hierarchical society, where "social smoothing" and avoiding conflict are highly valued.

Nature Is Not Old-Fashioned

Convincing people to question authority is culturally difficult. In addition, in the rush toward development, many Thais have rejected the pleasures of nature as old-fashioned. To be modern, one must want a mobile phone, an automobile or an MBA. This is especially true in areas developing quickly, like Thailand's Eastern region. Provincial Thais have middle-class aspirations and don't want to be perceived as country hicks.

Decades of intense focus on economic development in Thailand have contributed to a society in which illegal logging, poaching, and industrial dumping are often covered up. The rule of law doesn't yet apply universally, particularly to the top ranks of society. This country of 60 million people lacks both policies and the political will for resource management. Government departments responsible for different enforcement areas tend to be both corrupt and competitive with each other.

In the last 40 years, this once lush kingdom has lost 60 percent of its forests, many of its streams are polluted and over-fishing is rife.

In order for something to be preserved, first it must be valued. Through education and taking what he calls a "soft approach," Chaiyong is meeting with great success in reaching the hearts and minds of those living next to protected forest areas. His model in forest preservation is effective because it is focused, and sustained by the youth themselves through their clubs, and finally, because it educates and enlists local teachers and leaders.

Lessons Learned in Childhood

"I grew up in Thailand's Northeast Chaiyaphum province, and was lucky to live near a huge forest, Phukheau Wildlife Preservation Area," recalls the modest, soft-spoken Chaiyong. He regularly went into the forest with his elders, and learned about harvesting forest products, woodcraft and survival skills, and to hunt still-abundant small game. Then he began to witness the forest's destruction as villagers were increasingly drawn into illegal practices, and hired to exploit resources.

"Every place it's the same, all over Thailand; the villagers are the main losers when these areas become polluted or degraded. They also reap the fewest benefits and get all the blame," says Chaiyong.

After graduating from college, Chaiyong volunteered for two years in a national forest in Tak, collecting data. In 1987 he shifted his work to a conservation area in Phu Kio in Rayong Province, where he began a program to educate villagers and school children.

The heart of Chaiyong's program, which has been accepted into the public school curriculums of three provinces, is classroom preparation, followed directly by a three-day, two-night, camping trip to either the forest or seaside. Chaiyong started with one province and a shoestring budget in 1987, but has bolstered the program with increased public resources such as school buses and increasing classroom support. He began by winning over teachers through a series of training camps. They helped to promote the program to school administrators, and have since gone on to form teachers' environmental associations in the three provinces. They are introducing conservation with the emphasis on analyzing causes of environmental deterioration.

How the Camps Work

A typical camp (Chaiyong oversees 30 of these a year) consists of 60 students, 40 of primary and 20 of secondary age. They are divided into six groups of 10, each overseen by a teacher and led by a team of two or three student trainees. After the classroom work, which focuses on natural history, the students move into nature's laboratory on a Friday afternoon.

Time is spent on sensitizing them to the environment through games and activities such as tree hugging, and identifying subtle sounds of nature such as bird calls and insect noises. They grill sausages and cook rice porridge by the campfire, tell stories, and sleep in tents or under the stars. The second day, Saturday, they hike. While practicing survival skills such as compass reading and finding edible plants, they learn about natural history and the evolution of plants and animals. In sea camp, they go out in a boat, snorkel, look at coral and other sea life, and examine the results of destructive fishing techniques and pollution.

The entire final day is reserved for planning. Students brainstorm on projects to help preserve the local environment. Emphasis is on activities they can do today rather than pie-in-the-sky projects. The club concept is introduced, and most students choose to become involved. Several volunteer to become trainees for future camps.

The message is clear: our lives are enriched in a thousand ways by living near the forest or seashore. The trees, the mushrooms, the animals, the cool shade, the fish, the beauty, are all amenities that make life nicer. If they are destroyed and disappear, we are the ones who will lose most, not the commercial exploiters who often don't live here anyway. We must act now, not later.

When Chaiyong became an Ashoka Fellow in 1994, joining hundreds of others committed to making a better world, he secured funding from the National Environmental Policy and Planning Office to create a model project being considered in other parts of the country. Acceptance into the public schools has raised the program's status and profile, and strengthened its sustainability. A key element is training fishermen and local leaders to carry on operating the camps in Chaiyong's absence.

Even Tree-Huggers Need Money

"The hardest short-term problem has been to get the local fishermen to realize their own interests in preventing overfishing, and preserving mangrove forest breeding grounds," Chaiyong says. His strategy is to help link up fishermen in his study area with those from the Southern Local Fisherman's Assembly, a Yad Fon program, so they can learn from each others' successes.

Continued funding is a problem. Thailand is facing the worst economic crisis in 20 years, and there have been massive government spending cuts. So far, he has been able to spread the money he gets for Chantaburi into the other two provinces, in which there have been delays in receiving anticipated support but his current Chantaburi funding ends in February, 1999.

A smiling, gentle person, Chaiyong has succeeded where forest officers have failed in winning villagers' trust. His deep love of nature is transmitted to children, who in turn effect their parents' behavior by refusing to eat wild animals hunted down in the forest, to illegally chop down trees, or to engage in illegal fishing methods.

His most urgent goal is to save the great riches of Thailand.