Bangkok plants mangrove trees to fight coastal erosion

BANGKOK, May 15 (TNA) – The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has launched a mangrove reforestation project to fight aggravating coastal erosion instead of building breakwater, which needs much more budget. Bangkok governor Aswin Kwanmuang today led BMA executives and community leaders to plant mangrove trees on a 10-rai pilot area to fight coastal erosion in Bangkok’s Bang Khunthien district. Bangkok governor said about 4.7 kilometres of coastline had been eroded and about 3,000 rai of land (1,200 acres) had disappeared, affecting the ecology and mangrove nursery for marine life. Local residents have been forced to move two kilometres deeper into the land and the erosion now poses a threat on the Rama II Road in the future. To solve the problem, he said the BMA targets to restore the 1,000 rai of mangrove forest and to extend to 3,000 rai in 2019. The mangrove reforestation project will use the budget of 700 million baht, more worthwhile than the T-groin project to build the T-shaped sediment trap or detached breakwater to soften the strong waves, which requires about five billion baht to do so, he added. About 100 million baht has been already spent on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study on the T-groin project and no concrete result has come out from the study, so the BMA decided to terminate the project, said the Bangkok governor. (TNA)