An old market town on the Mae Klong river, Amphawa has long been famous for the fireflies which live amongst the mangroves in the esturine waters where the Mae Klong meets the sea.
The CASE team began their investigation by wandering along the riverside, Pi Sut was filming, Ae was sketching, the rest of us were taking photos, asking questions and chatting with shopkeepers, homestay owners, residents, and anyone who had the time to tell a little of their own story of Amphawa.
Amphawa has recently been targeted for rejuvenation through a number of tourism initiatives. A floating market has been set up. The old Chinese shop-houses have been renovated for use as shops, cafes and accommodation assisted by a partnership of Amphawa Municipality, the Office of Natural and Environmental Policy and Planning, the Faculty of Architecture at Chulalungkorn University and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). In just a few years, the numbers of visitors to Amphawa has gone up dramatically, especially on the weekend, attracting hoards from nearby Bangkok. People go there for the fire flies, but is their habitat being threatened by the tourism which they attract?
The talaat naam (floating market) is a popular new addition to Amphawa
Renovated shophouses
Esturine saplings, they will grow to form part of the fireflies' habitat.
We also met with some of the community representatives who are coordinating with CODI on the Baan Man Kong assistance for Amphawa. They described some of the conflicts within the community. While the market is thriving, the economic benefits of the new visitors are not spreading to the surrounding areas. They are feeling only the negative effects: the rubbish, the noise of firefly tour boats at night. They have tried setting curfews for the boats, but they are hard to enforce. They have tried employing people to collect the rubbish but there are squabbles over who will pay their wages.
Meeting with community leaders.
While parts of Amphawa are booming...
others are left behind.
Tour boats have been a noise problem for residents at night.
There have been some successes though. Pi Daeng described an inovative strategy, sponsering a public, open-air karaoke initiative to bring people over to formerly overlooked areas of the market.
...public karaoke.
4 comments:
Hugo, amazing stuff! Very interesting, keep it coming.
Dave
Hey wait a minute. How did karaoke solve the noise problem?
The houses who were having a problem with the noise of the tour boats are further down the river, an area which is entirely residential. The karaoke is within the real market area, but in an area previously overlooked by visitors.
nice drawings pare
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