4 ms·

I'm a scuba diver here in Thailand and you can still see blast fishing damage from decades ago that never fully recovered. It's truly as terrible as the article

I'm a scuba diver here in Thailand and you can still see blast fishing damage from decades ago that never fully recovered. It's truly as terrible as the article makes it out to be. What is interesting is that both Indonesia and Thailand have strong and similar anti blast fishing laws since early 00s that charge 5+ years of prison time. However, Thailand has been much more successful with taming blast fishing which is practically gone now and the story here is very insightful. Some of it is due to Thailand's geography and high demand for marine tourism but the biggest push here was EU and US regulation that gave Thailand opportunity to shape up. In 2015 (same year when Thai anti blast laws were codified more strictly) US TIP (trafficking in persons) report down-graded Thailand to tier 3 mostly due to fishing slave workers while at the same time EU's IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing) issued a yellow card. All of which lead to the biggest fishery reform in Thai history which mostly eliminated blast fishing. Since then Thailand is back to tier 2 of TIP and got lost the yellow card from EU's IUU. Indonesia never got tier 3 of TIP despite many arguing it should have and never got a card from IUU. Stories like this turn me into a globalization believer - I know it's not perfect but the system is kinda working?

throwaway2037 23d ago
Thanks for sharing your first-hand account of diving in Thailand. I think they should aggressively pursue coral planting. They are several projects in Indonesia that have demonstrated excellent results. I volunteered for a day doing coral planting in Bali, Indonesia. As part of the dive, they take you to different parts of the coral reef as it recovers, showing you how it changes year after year. You can see the change with your own eyes.
- wraptile 23d ago
  I agree though we had very mid results here in the Gulf of Thailand while the Andaman Sea side has had more luck. The issue with Gulf of Thailand is that it's just so shallow with avg depth of only 50m and too calm making new coral growth very hard with existing techniques. There's some new promising research on alternative methods of raising coral larva in labs, but I'm not up to speed with that yet and it seems quite complex.
  - bbondo 22d ago
    Have any areas in GoT shown recovery from blasting and/or bleaching without human intervention? I have fond memories of Koh Tao circa 2009...
    - wraptile 22d ago
      Koh Tao is definitely not doing great compared to 2009 though there is some bounce back lately. I just moved from there to Koh Chang which despite poor visibility still has a lot of absolutely stunning untouched corals though unlike Koh Tao it takes an hour-long boat ride to get out there. Koh Phangan recently made news on massive natural recovery, so there's a lot of hope in the Gulf of Thailand still!
- randoomed 22d ago
  Mossy earth has been doing a (i think quite successful) restoration of an coral area damaged by bomb fishing in indonesia. Here is a 2 year recap of the program and the result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0bkMhhMHOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0bkMhhMHOw
  - throwaway2037 22d ago
    Hat tip. I'm pretty sure their sites are in Nusa Penida which is a short ferry ride from Bali, Indonesia. I did my dive (repair work) in Padangbai[1][2]. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Livingseas+Coral+Restoration+Site/@-8.5275133,115.5124981,665m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x2dd141d3e8100fa1:0x24910fb14b24e690!2sBali,+Indonesia!3b1!8m2!3d-8.4095178!4d115.188916!16s%2Fg%2F121hxh1j!3m5!1s0x2dd20f0af9462d0d:0x5218323281bb0375!8m2!3d-8.5275133!4d115.5132446!16s%2Fg%2F11trlkdkmj?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDgyMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Livingseas+Coral+Restorati... [2] https://www.reefrestorationbali.com/ https://www.reefrestorationbali.com/
- freefolks 22d ago
  Thailand doesn't have the conditions required for corals to thrive. The best, most beautiful coral come from Indonesia.
  - throwaway2037 21d ago
    The coral in Andaman Sea (west side) is as good as Indonesia. Currently, most coral restoration projects are using table coral. Both places have plenty of it.
ghm2199 22d ago
Is it just a matter of incentives by the government in indonesia? Like is it that bomb fishing in indonesia is incentivized because of, for example, profit margins in fishing vs say tourism? I know you mentioned Indonesia never got the yellow card it should have and that certainly creates less incentives for them to straighten their act. But I am trying to understand if the government is still largely to blame or not?
- wraptile 22d ago
  > But I am trying to understand if the government is still largely to blame or not? all blast fishing is a failure of governance so I'd say yes but the fishing cultures here in SEA are so different from anywhere else in the world so it's very hard to govern without strong central body. Lots of cultural, religious, poverty and spiritual stuff mixed into all of that which really complicates things. IMO Thailand has a much stronger centralized government and just better geography to make enforcement easier. It's mostly mainland with coastlines while Indonesia is mostly islands which are notoriously difficult to govern. So to answer your question, it's probably just that incentives in Thailand go much further due to all of these variables.
  - markdown 22d ago
    While it's hard to regulate fishing when your country is made up of endless islands, it's quite easy to regulate dynamite. So no, I don't think the number of islands is an excuse. In Fiji, for example, no fisherman could get dynamite if they wanted it. The only way to get that is if you run a (very heavily regulated) mine, or a quarry, and you'd have to account for every blast.
    - lmz 22d ago
      Does it have to be dynamite or are other, improvised explosives possible?
      - floam 22d ago
        The article mentioned fertilizer - that’s not straightforward to control and precisely account for.
deleted 22d ago
[deleted]
ColdStream 22d ago
I'm not surprised that even decades later they have not recovered. It is like old growth forests on the land, once you clear them it can take centuries to recover.
aaron695 22d ago
[dead]
no_carrier 22d ago
Thais will quite commonly bomb fish their neighbour's dam as often as they feel like it. I'm not convinced that they're also not doing it in the ocean, too. It may be happening away from the main diving sites.
alansaber 22d ago
Global international pressure seems to be the only solution to nautiucal problems in particular
joeguilmette 22d ago
heyyyyy are you still on Koh Tao or did you guys move?
DarmokTanagra 21d ago
Remember a few years ago when the Chinese dive group were killed by bomb fishermen in Indo?

throwaway2037 23d ago

Thanks for sharing your first-hand account of diving in Thailand. I think they should aggressively pursue coral planting. They are several projects in Indonesia that have demonstrated excellent results. I volunteered for a day doing coral planting in Bali, Indonesia. As part of the dive, they take you to different parts of the coral reef as it recovers, showing you how it changes year after year. You can see the change with your own eyes.

wraptile 23d ago
I agree though we had very mid results here in the Gulf of Thailand while the Andaman Sea side has had more luck. The issue with Gulf of Thailand is that it's just so shallow with avg depth of only 50m and too calm making new coral growth very hard with existing techniques. There's some new promising research on alternative methods of raising coral larva in labs, but I'm not up to speed with that yet and it seems quite complex.
- bbondo 22d ago
  Have any areas in GoT shown recovery from blasting and/or bleaching without human intervention? I have fond memories of Koh Tao circa 2009...
  - wraptile 22d ago
    Koh Tao is definitely not doing great compared to 2009 though there is some bounce back lately. I just moved from there to Koh Chang which despite poor visibility still has a lot of absolutely stunning untouched corals though unlike Koh Tao it takes an hour-long boat ride to get out there. Koh Phangan recently made news on massive natural recovery, so there's a lot of hope in the Gulf of Thailand still!
randoomed 22d ago
Mossy earth has been doing a (i think quite successful) restoration of an coral area damaged by bomb fishing in indonesia. Here is a 2 year recap of the program and the result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0bkMhhMHOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0bkMhhMHOw
- throwaway2037 22d ago
  Hat tip. I'm pretty sure their sites are in Nusa Penida which is a short ferry ride from Bali, Indonesia. I did my dive (repair work) in Padangbai[1][2]. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Livingseas+Coral+Restoration+Site/@-8.5275133,115.5124981,665m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x2dd141d3e8100fa1:0x24910fb14b24e690!2sBali,+Indonesia!3b1!8m2!3d-8.4095178!4d115.188916!16s%2Fg%2F121hxh1j!3m5!1s0x2dd20f0af9462d0d:0x5218323281bb0375!8m2!3d-8.5275133!4d115.5132446!16s%2Fg%2F11trlkdkmj?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDgyMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Livingseas+Coral+Restorati... [2] https://www.reefrestorationbali.com/ https://www.reefrestorationbali.com/
freefolks 22d ago
Thailand doesn't have the conditions required for corals to thrive. The best, most beautiful coral come from Indonesia.
- throwaway2037 21d ago
  The coral in Andaman Sea (west side) is as good as Indonesia. Currently, most coral restoration projects are using table coral. Both places have plenty of it.

ghm2199 22d ago

Is it just a matter of incentives by the government in indonesia? Like is it that bomb fishing in indonesia is incentivized because of, for example, profit margins in fishing vs say tourism? I know you mentioned Indonesia never got the yellow card it should have and that certainly creates less incentives for them to straighten their act. But I am trying to understand if the government is still largely to blame or not?

wraptile 22d ago
> But I am trying to understand if the government is still largely to blame or not? all blast fishing is a failure of governance so I'd say yes but the fishing cultures here in SEA are so different from anywhere else in the world so it's very hard to govern without strong central body. Lots of cultural, religious, poverty and spiritual stuff mixed into all of that which really complicates things. IMO Thailand has a much stronger centralized government and just better geography to make enforcement easier. It's mostly mainland with coastlines while Indonesia is mostly islands which are notoriously difficult to govern. So to answer your question, it's probably just that incentives in Thailand go much further due to all of these variables.
- markdown 22d ago
  While it's hard to regulate fishing when your country is made up of endless islands, it's quite easy to regulate dynamite. So no, I don't think the number of islands is an excuse. In Fiji, for example, no fisherman could get dynamite if they wanted it. The only way to get that is if you run a (very heavily regulated) mine, or a quarry, and you'd have to account for every blast.
  - lmz 22d ago
    Does it have to be dynamite or are other, improvised explosives possible?
    - floam 22d ago
      The article mentioned fertilizer - that’s not straightforward to control and precisely account for.

deleted 22d ago

[deleted]

ColdStream 22d ago

I'm not surprised that even decades later they have not recovered. It is like old growth forests on the land, once you clear them it can take centuries to recover.

aaron695 22d ago

[dead]

no_carrier 22d ago

Thais will quite commonly bomb fish their neighbour's dam as often as they feel like it. I'm not convinced that they're also not doing it in the ocean, too. It may be happening away from the main diving sites.

alansaber 22d ago

Global international pressure seems to be the only solution to nautiucal problems in particular

joeguilmette 22d ago

heyyyyy are you still on Koh Tao or did you guys move?

DarmokTanagra 21d ago

Remember a few years ago when the Chinese dive group were killed by bomb fishermen in Indo?