Paying for masks to breathe: Normalcy at risk as Thailand gets engulfed in the deadly haze, choking the lives of millions

Amidst the crowds full of millions of tourists rushing to Thailand every year to experience the sunny beaches, mouth tempting street foods, water sport activities, ornamented temples, lies the hidden abode of suffering of millions of Thai people as air pollution in the northern cities of Thailand exceeds the levels of WHO guidelines and proceeds to engulf the entire bustling place in a matter of few years. According to Thai data, the rapid escalation of pollution levels has mainly been traced on the lines of recurring forest fires, agricultural burning and over population of vehicles emitting carbon dioxide leading to a hazardous culmination of disease and death. A court in Northern Thailand has finally decided to answer the grievances of the local citizens that this air pollution is not responsible for the decrease in the life expectancy of people but also a grave violation of people’s basic rights. According to Mongabay news, “More than 1,700 plaintiffs, including activists, academicians, residents and medical professionals submitted the grievance against Prime Minister Prayut Chan – o-Cha, The National Environmental Board (NEB) and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) at the Chiang Mai Administrative Court on April 10,2023. Much of the problem is also due to the prolonged practices of slash and burn agriculture in Laos and Myanmar.

According to Sunat Insao, a Chiang Mai Resident, ‘The air has become so polluted that tourists have stopped coming to the once golden spot of the mountains of this region and every time it stinks her throat due the irritation caused by the inhalation of the toxins in air’. Chiang Mai’s record of air pollution has surpassed the safe threshold and estimated to be 66 times the WHO guidelines and it’s extremely worrying for Thailand as their basic rights to breathe safely is at stake. Not only that, their working status has also declined tremendously as merely a walk in this gas chamber is causing breathing problems.

However, recent national and Bangkok media projects this deep-rooted problem of air pollution within a new found discourse which throws almost the entire blame upon the local practices of agricultural burning. The media feeds the urbanites with brute critiques of trading the country’s health for the burning sensation of the ‘het thop’ mushrooms on a large scale. These mushrooms are favoured by Thai men and women. However, being a rather scarce resource, Karens (the hill uplanders) follow a local tradition of burning the thick leaves to extract the deep-rooted mushrooms from below. The main inductor behind this whole chain of commodification of these local delicacies is the media outlets which once bombarded the minds of the urbanites with their marketization ploys and are now flush with environmental degradation causes. Eating these mushrooms is an age-old local practice. So much so that even on interviews they happily expressed their love for the tastiest mushrooms of all times. According to BBC reports, “On 10^th March, Thai health authorities reported that in the first nine weeks of the year, more than 1.3 million people had already suffered in air pollution-related diseases. More than 2 million people were hospitalised and rather than any improvement the situation further worsened with time. “

However, due to the discursive tensions and state incursions following the new trend of opposition from the elitist conservatives and urban environmentalists, blaming the mushroom cultivation has almost become a new found agenda of these groups. This however side-lines various other issues that were also equally to be blamed for this rapid acceleration of PM. 25 particulate matter in the air which are carriers of the toxins that are harmful for human lives. In an interview Wittaya Pongsiri, Vice-President of Chiang Mai Tourism Business Association Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand (which once used to be the 2^nd bustling tourist place but has now has turned to an empty town of masked residents) notes that residents are struggling to somehow cope up with their meagre economic means and even sparing it for regular masks for’ JUST TO BREATHE ‘.

However neither this constant blame upon the farmers due to previous feuds and grim tensions with the lowlanders and urbanites nor complete banning of their practices can solve this disastrous life threatening environmental issue. As the independent legal researcher and member of the legal team representing the citizen plaintiffs, Kornakok Wathanabhoom argues shutting even the outlet of scavenging the meagre amount from the mushroom hunting will not just be enough, It would be even worse as it would brutally effect these smallholder farmers as it will enlarge the poverty trap. Not only that, such watertight enclosures by the state can further heighten the anger of peaceful local traditions that have passed since ancient times. The keung meung uplanders believe in the untamed malicious spirits in the forests and hence they bow down to ask for the permission of nature to scavenge the mushrooms by burning the outgrowths. This long lived tradition cannot be shut down with words or brute actions from authority. Hence the matter can only be condensed with sustainable measures such as the decrease in excessive marketization or putting taxes to lower the scale of cultivation.

Not only are the mushroom scavengers at fault, but a major problem of this haze is it’s ‘trans boundary nature’ as air pollution drifts from the maize fields of Laos and Myanmar as a result of their periodic slash and burn agriculture to increase fertility. Not only that, according to the Geo-Informatics’ and Space Technology Development Agency, as of March 25, Thailand is recorded to have 4,376 Hotspot while Laos had double the number and Myanmar nearly triple. However, the border regulations have been virtually impossible both for Myanmar and Laos as the former is currently going through civil war and the latter facing economic crises due to the detachment from China’s maize production trading. Given this condition the state should focus on the utilisation of various sustainable means of solving the problem as the lives of millions in Thailand depend on this. If the measures are not taken correctly, then matters can get worse and the once ‘Land of Smiles‘ can potentially turn to the  ‘Land of Grimace’ within a matter of a few years.

References

Cowan, C. (2023,June 6). Citizens demand sustainable solution to haze crisis in Northern Thailand. Retrieved from news.mongabay.com https://news.mongabay.com/2023/06/citizens-demand-sustainable-solution-to-haze-crisis-in-northern-thailand/#:~:text=Air%20quality%20among%20worst%20in%20the%20world&text=Early%202023%20saw%20readings%20of,polluted%20cities%20in%20the%20world

Footer, M. (2023,April 5). Land of Smiles? Grimaces, more like :how Thailand’s air pollution threatens the health I residents and it’s tourism industry . Retrieved from South China Morning Post https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3216032/land-smiles-grimaces-more-how-thailands-air-pollution-threatens-health-residents-and-its-tourism

Lodge, E. (2023,July). Burning for a Beloved Mushroom :Northern Thai Environmentalism and the Contested Narratives of a Wild Delicacy. Retrieved from Jstor.  https://www.jstor.org/stable/27219712

People in Thailand are suffering through some of the world’s worst air pollution., Retrieved from dwnews on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cq3ewlGr28C/?igshid=M2MyMzgzODVlNw==

Pajai, W. (2023, April 9). Smog drives away Thailand’s tourists as Laos, Myanmar farmers grow cash crops for China. Retrieved from South China Morning Post :This week in Asia https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3216349/smog-drives-away-thailands-tourists-laos-myanmar-farmers-grow-cash-crops-china

Atrayee Pal

Intern, Asia in Global Affairs

The originality of the content and the opinions expressed within the content are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of the website.