What?

A nice picture?

This picture was taken on the northern flank of Doi Suthep; it is very pretty with the sillouettes and the road and what not, but it is a misleading beauty.
The truth is that these trees should be surrounded by others and you should be able to see very little sky at all. The surrounding trees have been cleared for lynchee orchards and for agricultural use.
Now. This is a complex problem. We are inside the National Park here and so technically there should be no agricultural development here at all. The problem has arisen because when the park was demarcated there was no acknowledgement of the villages which were already inside the boundary. Without recognition there was thus no way of monitoring any expansion of agricultural land use. The numbers of people in the villages has grown; the amount of land they farm has also grown. All at the expense of precious jungle.
What should be done?
There are two opposite camps: One group says cut down every tree on the mounatain and use the whole lot as farmland. The other says murder all the people living in the park and use their blood as fertiliser for the replanted trees.
(For those of you hyperboley challenged; that was a joke)
The answer is obviously in compromise. It probably begins with a conversation which might lead on to a dialogue and then who knows; a discussion?
It is just something to be aware of; a local environmental issue that is replayed across much of Northern Thailand and that should be addressed if people are serious about protecting the fragmented patches of nature that provides us with so much.

What mountain?

This was taken at the beginning of March during the week of worst pollution. It is looking down Loi Khroh Road towards the city and Doi Suthep beyond.. Now bear in mind that the sun is setting behind the mountain and the least you would expect to see would be a silloutte.

This can’t be good publicity for Chiang Mai as a tourist destination or as retirement community. Addressing this problem is difficult but the city can play its part. Reducing traffic pollution and finding sollutions to the problem of forest/agricultural/backyard burning should be a priority for us as a city.
Start with yourself: Consider how much you use your car and whether you could alternatively use public transport or even a bike. Chiang Mai is not as dangerous as people assume, buy a decent pollution mask off the internet and then go for it. The technique is never to make any sudden movements and to always check around you before you do any kind of manouvre.
 If you have to drive your car (and you probably don’t), turn the engine off when you’re at the lights. I’ve recently noticed that all fourway traffic lights follow an anti-clockwise rotation; knowing this allows you to anticipate the change and turn your engine back on.
Small things, I know, but awareness is the first step towards change.

We are so lucky to have this National Park on the edge of our city

This mountain gives our city so much:
Not only a nice spot for a picnic or a view of the city, it has some excellent hikes with some great flora and fauna. There’s interesting birdlife- I’ve seen fireback pheasants and lots of racket-tailed drongos-  And there’s interesting plantlife -look for the raffelesia flowers near the enormous fig tree-
It’s better than the zoo.
Not just that, but Doi Suthep also gives us cool, clean air and water. Every evening a cool wind rushes down its slopes and into the city, blowing away some of that ever-present pollution. And; there are numerous streams which flow off its slopes, that fill our dams and fill the moat. All for free!
It is an icon of our city and we should do everything we can to keep it healthy and clean.