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Phuket TV - PHUKET XTRA: VIDEO: TAT talks ending dual pricing! Chinese tourists main target for Phuket? || July 3

Phuket TV - PHUKET XTRA: VIDEO: TAT talks ending dual pricing! Chinese tourists main target for Phuket? || July 3

Green Thoughts: Sprouting sun worshippers

Green Thoughts: Sprouting sun worshippers

Sustainably Yours: Solving Phuket’s Water Crisis

Sustainably Yours: Solving Phuket’s Water Crisis

Government petitioned for urgent aid to help starving elephants

Government petitioned for urgent aid to help starving elephants

Pandemic spurs ‘End Wildlife Crime’ drive

Pandemic spurs ‘End Wildlife Crime’ drive

Community Forests to be upgraded for food security in the Deep South

Community Forests to be upgraded for food security in the Deep South

Asean calls for nature’s conservation to prevent future pandemics

Asean calls for nature’s conservation to prevent future pandemics
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Green Thoughts: Sprouting sun worshippers
Green Thoughts: Sprouting sun worshippers
Sunday 28 June 2020, 02:00PM
As readers familiar with this column will be aware, I often iterate the point, perhaps ad nauseam, that botanical names are worth mastering, since they offer valuable clues to a plant’s characteristics: maybe its place of origin (Japonica), its physical features (odorata), or even its cultural requirements. 
Sustainably Yours: Solving Phuket’s Water Crisis
Sustainably Yours: Solving Phuket’s Water Crisis
Sunday 28 June 2020, 11:00AM
Your body consists of 60% water. You can only survive without it for three days. We use it for food, drinking, cooking, bathing, cleaning and washing. Water IS life. We take it for granted in the misguided belief that we will always have enough. Just turn on the tap and it all seems so limitless. But imagine being without it during this global pandemic when we are implored to wash our hands. Such a small thing can mean the difference between life and death.
Government petitioned for urgent aid to help starving elephants
Government petitioned for urgent aid to help starving elephants
Friday 19 June 2020, 12:27AM
BANGKOK: Susan Field, a British citizen residing on Koh Samui, has presented a petition with almost 65,000 signatures to the Thai government asking for urgent financial aid for elephants and their handlers who have received no income since tourists disappeared at the start of COVID-19.
Pandemic spurs ‘End Wildlife Crime’ drive
Pandemic spurs ‘End Wildlife Crime’ drive
Friday 5 June 2020, 10:28AM
HONG KONG: The economic, health and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic provide a stark reminder of the high risks associated with the under-regulated, poorly regulated and illegal trade in wildlife, a new international initiative to “End Wildlife Crime” announced today (June 5).
Community Forests to be upgraded for food security in the Deep South
Community Forests to be upgraded for food security in the Deep South
Tuesday 26 May 2020, 10:37AM
The Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC) is joining hands with the Royal Forest Department and other relevant agencies in rehabilitating and upgrading community forests in the Deep South in order to generate employment and income for local residents.
Sustainably Yours: Reimagining Phuket
Sustainably Yours: Reimagining Phuket
Sunday 24 May 2020, 11:00AM
As Phuket comes out of lockdown everybody wants to forget about COVID-19 and for life to go back to “normal”. However, let’s not forget that normal meant constant construction, routine water shortages and frequent electrical outages. Normal was the buzz of jet-skis, the roar of motorbikes and the thumping bass of club music. Normal was plastic-filled beaches and polluted klong waters seeping into the sea. Normal was congested highways, aggressive drivers, and a high death toll. So, let’s not go back to “normal”.
Asean calls for nature’s conservation to prevent future pandemics
Asean calls for nature’s conservation to prevent future pandemics
Friday 22 May 2020, 03:26PM
The Asean Secretariat (ASEC) and the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) held their first webinar on May 20, underscoring the linkages of biodiversity and health and regional efforts to integrate biodiversity conservation into the COVID-19 response.
Green Thoughts: Is your garden full of beans?
Green Thoughts: Is your garden full of beans?
Sunday 17 May 2020, 01:31PM
The very first time an expat ventures into a local Thai establishment for lunch, s/he will probably find a plate of green veggies on the table. We are not talking posh restaurants here, but the kind of open roadside eateries frequented by Thai workers, where the food is presented for your inspection in large metal pots. The platters of greens? Usually a mix of morning glory and cashew tree leaves, maybe some Chinese kale or chives, perhaps okra. Certainly, beans. A gamut of exotic flavours.
Sustainably Yours: The importance of understanding and trusting in Science
Sustainably Yours: The importance of understanding and trusting in Science
Sunday 26 April 2020, 11:00AM
In his book ‘21 Lessons for The 21st Century’, historian Yuval Noah Harari begins by writing, “In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.” Before the Internet, access to information was relatively limited, and media was concentrated in the hands of a few corporations, which had its problems.
Green Thoughts: Good vibrations and your garden
Green Thoughts: Good vibrations and your garden
Sunday 19 April 2020, 01:36PM
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good…” While we are all confined to barracks, or, more pleasurably, to our own home in the tropics, the privation has, ironically, opened up a wonderful opportunity for us – the chance to appreciate our gardens anew. Beyond their walls, Mother Nature is herself enjoying a welcome respite from man’s incessant predations: less pollution, less plastic, less  pandemonium, fewer people. More opportunity for the planet’s besieged and threatened creatures to get their breath, maybe their lives back. But the garden is unique: a natural location where man’s presence is not only necessary, but invariably positive. A symbiotic arrangement. Not only is the gardener good for the garden, the garden is good for the gardener. Have you ever encountered an unhappy tiller of the soil? Not often, I would guess. From the time when mentally disturbed Egyptian royalty were prescribed soothing walks in palace parks, to the use of therapeutic gardening to assist World War One soldiers with nerves frayed by gunfire and mud, there has been a proven nexus between such “green” activities and improved physical and mental rates of recovery – including reduced stress, a keener sense of well-being, even increased self-esteem. In his 17th century poem “The Garden”,  Andrew Marvell famously described such immersion as trance-like: “annihilating all that’s made/ To a green thought in a green shade.” In fact, the natural world has long been lauded by writers able to empathise with its ‘good vibrations’. Thus the Romantic poet William Wordsworth writing more than two centuries ago: One impulse from a vernal woodShall teach us more of man,Of moral evil and of good,Than all the sages can. An extravagant claim. However, what he means is something all nature lovers and, one hopes, all gardeners believe in, the restorative and benevolent force of nature. In what is more a Buddhist than Christian “impulse”, the poet avers that walking in a wood where spring is springing is an enspiriting experience, a place where we feel a sense of kinship with other living things, in harmony with the universe. While few of us today nowadays enjoy such a bucolic existence, every gardener can testify to the therapeutic power of Mother Nature. If we cannot walk among the bluebells in a “vernal wood”, or marvel at a tropic lake ablaze with lotus blooms, where better to experience the presence of nature than in our own garden; smelling the earth after a freshening shower, inhaling the perfume from a jasmine flower , or listening to a chorus of cicadas. Personally, I experience another more mundane benefit – a sense of optimism and satisfaction at the very  thought of all that springing, magical growth that is silently happening beyond the house walls – buds opening, roots delving, leaving unfurling, seeds sprouting, flowers bursting into bloom. Come a new day, I venture out into a kaleidoscopic world, a living tapestry where everything has subtly changed. There is growing evidence [no pun intended] that gardening helps in other, measurable ways. In an increasingly urbanized world , the presence of plants, particularly trees and shrubs in our own borders or in nearby parks and communal gardens, enriches the very air we breathe. All photosynthesizing  plants act as a sink for potentially harmful carbon dioxide, sequestering the greenhouse gas, and releasing life-enhancing oxygen into the atmosphere. Just for the record, they also intercept harmful airborne particulates, save water through their roots and leaves, and prevent flooding. One study recently found that green plants prevented nearly a million cases of respiratory disease, and removed in one year an estimated 17 tons of atmospheric pollutants. Six leafy trees provides enough oxygen for one person. Who knows, they could be an unseen ally in the fight against Covid 19… And the nearer these plants are to human habitation, the greater their health-giving impact on people’s lives. Trees in your garden? An especial treasure. Nor are we the only beneficiaries  Shrubs and leafy trees provide cover and nesting areas for birds; your lily pond is home to frogs and fishes; the nectar of flowers is life-sustaining for butterflies and bees. In material terms, gardens increase property values and help pay the grocery bill. If you have a garden in Thailand, there is little excuse for not growing your own produce since most of the world’s edible fruits and vegetables thrive in this most fecund of environments. Your local market demonstrates what local growers can do. Are you doing likewise? The garden is a microcosm of the world at large – the natural world. Today, its ecological importance has never been greater- and is getting more and more so. As green spaces vanish everywhere, as habitats for wild creatures shrink and as man is increasingly confined to an unnatural existence in apartment or condominium , our gardens and even our pot-lined patios fulfill a crucial role – oases of greenery in our concrete jungles. Tend and nurture your garden, In so doing, you will be nurturing yourself. Patrick’s book ‘The Tropic Gardener’, the culmination of 13 years of writing about tropical plants and their cultivation in Phuket, is now available. Promotional price of B900, including post and packing. Dr Patrick Campbell can be contacted at his home Camelot, located at 59/84 Soi Saiyuan 13; Rawai; Phuket 83130. Tel:66 076613227 (land line), 0655012326 or 0857827551 (mobile).
Sustainably Yours: Why COVID-19 gives me hope for climate change
Sustainably Yours: Why COVID-19 gives me hope for climate change
Sunday 29 March 2020, 11:00AM
We’re living through strange and uncertain times having gone from the climate crisis of 2019 directly into the health crisis of 2020. No need to go to the cinema anymore to watch the latest Hollywood disaster movie, these days it seems as if we’re all living through one and you just need to turn on BBC or CNN. Hurricanes, volcanoes, floods, droughts, fires, now a virus, dare I ask what’s next?
Green Thoughts: ‘The Tropic Gardener’
Green Thoughts: ‘The Tropic Gardener’
Sunday 22 March 2020, 01:00PM
My book, The Tropic Gardener, has just come off the printer’s press. As readers of this column and of earlier pieces in the Phuket Gazette and elsewhere will be aware, I have been writing about tropical plants and their cultivation for some 13 years. This book derives in part from those reflections; it is the culmination both of my own attempts to create a garden in Southeast Asia, and in so doing to offer a written hands-on guide to available plants and their cultivation.
Green Thoughts: Flowers of fortune and good luck
Green Thoughts: Flowers of fortune and good luck
Sunday 16 February 2020, 10:00AM
Valentine’s Day is upon us and the shops are awash with cards displaying gold hearts and red roses. Ever since Robert Burns wrote: “My love is like a red red rose / That’s newly sprung in June” and likely long before that, the rose has been every lover’s choice for February the fourteenth, a floral symbol not just of beauty and romance, but a metaphor for the well-spring of true love, the human heart.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reward. Redux
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reward. Redux
Thursday 30 January 2020, 09:00AM
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2019 was the second hottest year ever recorded, and according to NASA, NOAA, and the UK Meteorological Office 2010-2019 was the hottest decade.
To use is to reuse
To use is to reuse
Saturday 18 January 2020, 11:45AM
BANGKOK- Funny photos taken at supermarkets and convenience stores across Thailand were circulated on New Year’s Day, showing customers carrying unusual containers like a construction cart, a cement bag, a plastic bucket and even a stainless-steel cooking pot to use as substitutes for plastic bags.
Turtles released at Maya Bay, Koh Phi Phi
Wednesday 1 January 2020, 12:00AM
Koh Phi Phi Leh’s- Maya Bay Beach has been a controversial topic in recent years. The bay is still closed. However, tourists are still able to visit the National Park to swim and snorkel along the outskirts of the bay. A rope strung across the bay prevents visitors from getting close to the beach. The popular local opinion, shared amongst most is that the bay should not re-open anytime soon; and definitely not under the same unregulated circumstances.
Green Thoughts: Practical palms
Green Thoughts: Practical palms
Sunday 15 December 2019, 02:00PM
In many countries, palms are grown not for their aesthetic charms, but because they produce edible fruit in the most unpromising conditions. While they have been important throughout recorded history, especially in hot, arid regions, nowadays they are assuming even greater commercial importance as cash crops.
Phuket Farmers Club: The fruitful network championing the island’s farm-to-table movement
Phuket Farmers Club: The fruitful network championing the island’s farm-to-table movement
Sunday 1 December 2019, 10:00AM
Thailand is the fourth-highest pesticide consumer in the world, using herbicides like glyphosate, which is thought to be a carcinogen, and paraquat which is toxic to humans and animals. Then there's chlorpyrifos, which has been associated with developmental defects in children.
Eco-friendly saving methods for small businesses
Eco-friendly saving methods for small businesses
Saturday 30 November 2019, 03:00PM
Every small business looks for ways to save money in order to reduce ongoing expenditure and increase profits. But within the effort of saving money, a business could also be helping the environment by opting for greener technologies and processes along the way.
Green Thoughts: Small and mighty palms
Green Thoughts: Small and mighty palms
Sunday 10 November 2019, 03:00PM
While many arecaceae are notable for their impres­sive height, characterised by a solitary, unbranched stem surmounted by a crown of fronds, and often producing massive seeds – the coco de mer has seed pods weighing up to 30 kilograms – oth­er palms are neat and shrub-like, often denizens of the understory and able to survive with limited access to sunlight. In fact, their diversity is highest in tropical rainforests.
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