The Crisis Behind the Crisis?

The 2004 Indian ocean Tsunami and the Rehabilitation Policy of the Thai government 1

The Crisis Behind The Crisis?

Forced Migration and its Consequence as a Result of Environmental Change and Natural Disaster in ASEAN

15th December 2011, at 9.00 - 17.30 hrs. Chumpot - Pantip conference room, 4th floor of Prajadhipok Rambhai - Barni building, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

The 2004 Indian ocean Tsunami and the Rehabilitation Policy of the Thai government

Assoc. Prof. Suwattana Thadaniti (Ph.D)1

1. Introduction The Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0, occurred at 00.58 GMT on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicenter off the coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. This earthquake was so large that it produced numerous aftershocks, some registering a magnitude of as great as 7.1. This quake displaced massive volumes of water, triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean including Thailand's southern Andaman coast. As a consequent, a colossal tsunami waves struck Thailand's six southern provinces namely, Ranong, Phang-nga, Phuket, Krabi, Trang and Satun. The first four provinces had been unprecedentedly devastated with high loss of life as well as major damage to the natural environment, marine resources. The damage sustained to the environment was also impacting on thousands of people whose homelands located on those particular areas. The severe impact led to the serious consequences on two major communities, that were, the coastal fishing community and the sea gypsies or so- called Moken community. People's life had worsened, as these two communities depended on the land and the sea for resources to earn income in sectors like tourism and fishing. Taken the affected area into account, the impacting communities resided dispersedly both inside and outside the national park. Hence, an effective rehabilitation on both physical and ecosystem required a well regulated policy together with a responsive settlement regulation from the government.

1 Assoc. Prof. Suwattana Thadaniti (Ph.D) – Advisor of Social Research Institute, Chulalongkorn University and the academic expert, Faculty of Architecture, Kasetsart University

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In this respect, the supporting factors such as environmental issue as well as socio- cultural basis were needed to ponder over in order to restore communities' strength back to normal. Also, an improvement of people's capacities in the communities were needed to support economic development and their way of life. The purpose of this study is to signify the government's rehabilitation policy on the affected communities. After 2004 tsunami disaster, the government policy results in a continuous change in people's way of life. The old lifestyle is replaced by the modern lifestyle, generating loss of natural ecosystem and its culture. Since the rehabilitation policy framework defined by the government emphasizes solely on economic dimension and the implementation process abides by the top down policy, neglecting local participation, all together generates social problem in the communities, leading to an unsustainable development finally.

2. The Damage Caused by Tsunami 2.1 Assessment result of the physical intensity The finding from the IKONOS, a satellite study together with a field survey by various organizations reported that the areas where building density became a badly physical damage areas. Particularly, any construction built to serve tourists such as beach resorts and hotels located on Takua Pa, Khura Buri and Thai Muang districts, Phang Nga province were severely affected by tsunami. The moderate disastrous physical areas were the areas of uncrowned buildings where the construction was mainly for tourism and local people's properties. The moderate affected areas were Muang district, Krabi province, Kathu district, Phuket province and Suk Samran subdistrict, Ranong province. 2.2 Economic impact A substantial negative effect on the economic appeared in the area where economic activities, especially tourism, playing a major role in producing income. Many important tourist destinations and world renowned tourist attractions namely, Takua Pa, Khura Buri and Thai Muang districts in Phang Nga province; Kathu district in Phuket province, and Suk Samran subdistrict in Ranong province were a source of big income of local people. This massive income was illustrated by a province's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In Phuket, Kathu district, a tourist site producing major income to local people was hardly-hit by tsunami. Some tourist places such as Patong and Kamala beaches were severely damaged and required immediate operation on the rehabilitation policy. 2.3 Report on tsunami impact and communities rehabilitation, data gathered from field survey 2010 Field survey A finding from field survey in Lantua island, conducted during May 19-23, 2011 revealed as follows:

Tsunami effects: a recall from the victims Tsunami effects on the Andaman coast on December 26, 2004 were categorized into objective and subjective impacts as follows:

The objective impact

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The objective impact referred to properties of the tsunami victims such as houses, boats and fishing equipments, home appliances, vehicles and pets. Nature of properties' damage 1. Houses were either damaged or completely washed away. In the first case, some houses had partial damage, as they were hit by boats, washing away by tsunami wave. In the later case, the whole houses were completely destroyed by giant wave wiping out the houses away to hit the hill. 2. Mostly, the damaged boats could be fixed. Only a few fishing boats were completed destroyed. Tsunami's tidal wave swept some boats away to hit the houses and causing shipwreck. Additionally, some of the fishing equipments were disappeared, as it were blown into sea. However, some of the remaining equipments were in a damaged condition. 3. Some of the home appliances were either swept away to the sea or remained under a damaged condition due to the flood. Since seawater got inside the houses, making the electric home appliances and bedding got wet and unable to use again. 4. Motorcycles were blown into sea 5. Domestic animals such as dogs, cows, goats, ducks, chickens and birds were also blown into sea.

The subjective impact The subjective impact involved psychological effect as well as livelihood as follows: The tsunami disaster caused immense psychological trauma, discouraging a fisherman to go out to sea for fear that the tsunami would strike again. In this regard, the flashbacks of horrifying tsunami tragedy decreased the willingness to work of the fisherman. The impact on livelihood referred to a decreasing number of sea animals. After tsunami incident, the number of caught shrimp in the ocean was decreasing due to relocation of its habitat. Besides, some sea animals liked squid were rare. Therefore, it required a special fishing equipment such as a squid trap to catch in spite of the fact that it used to be easy to catch. (data gathered from an interview with local people in Ban Hua Laem community)

3. Rehabilitation Policy of the Thai Government A case study on Koh Lanta Island, Krabi province was selected to analyze for the government policy on communities' rehabilitation and reconstruction of the tsunami affected areas on December 26, 2004. The tsunami catastrophe was the worst natural disaster to ever strike Thailand's six coastal provinces in the Andaman sea, causing loss of life as well as major damage to properties. Koh Lanta district, one of the affected area, wasn't afflicted as badly; however, the other two communities--Ban Hua Laem and Ban Sang Ka-U--encountered more damage than the others. Although there was no report on the loss of life from these two communities, most of the houses were completely destroyed. At worst, boats and fishing equipments were blown into sea, making local people's life worsen severely. However, the relief efforts had been intense, with assistance coming from Thai government, provincial sector from Krabi, private sectors and various organizations to solve problems at hand and to provide emergency relief. The relief and reconstruction response varied by communities' needs and ability to arrange a new shelter. Obviously seen, with effective responses, each community showed its recovery progress within a shorter period. A range from short-term plan to long- term tourism rehabilitation plan was designated to be a provincial policy. Essentially, Krabi province

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had a master plan to change a world-class tourist destination from Phi Phi island--before tsunami disaster, this island used to be a famous tourist site and a key source of income--to Koh Lanta Yai island. According to the provincial master plan, Koh Lanta Yai island would have a new image as a hub of Andaman coastline. That was, the tourism development in Koh Lanta island had been upgraded from local to international tourist destination. The main objective, besides the community's rehabilitation plan, was to promote tourism as a dynamic economic activity for the province. Noticeably, this purpose was paralleled to the national tourism development strategy, aiming to enhance local tourism. This tourism strategy was implemented by the relevant agencies, receiving good response and generating change in terms of physical environment, economic and social on Koh Lanta island. Obvious seen, there was an objective change in light of land utilization at Koh Lanta Yai. This change, in turn, affected communities' way of life at Ban Hua Laem and Ban Sang Ka-U. In the past, both sea gypsies communities lived a simple fisherman life with tiny changes from the influence of globalization. However, after 2004 tsunami incident, some changes introduced by the government's top down policy on tourism strategy occurred. An augment income together with comfortable life became the indicators showing success in regards to the government rehabilitation plan. However, issue on sustainable community needed to be considered, solving and prevention in order to create well- being society together with long-term plan on tourism.

4. Tourism Impact In the aftermath of tsunami, a tourism promotion in the affected area resulted in an increasing number of accommodations and tourists in Koh Lanta island. Consequently, this promotional plan led to both positive and negative impacts to local people as follows: The positive impact of tourism involved employment in the community. At present, Koh Lanta Yai island had hotels, resorts, restaurants and various service oriented stores available for service to the tourists. These facilities generated occupations, employment and income to local people besides fishery. Generally, woman made her living in service oriented field. Meanwhile, man earned his supplement income by converting a fishing boat to cruiser and taking tourists to travel to each island and diving. The negative impact of tourism after the natural disaster tsunami occurred when the government sector had a policy to promote tourism on Koh Lanta island. This derived a problem of land title. That was, the investors laid claim for ownership of the public land originally resided by local people in the community. The interviewee, local people, explained the business people's need of land and houses in this particular areas that "they want to build a house and sell it to a foreigner. Thing was getting worst when the business people took a policeman to the village. Inevitably, the villagers embroiled in dispute and ended up in the police station. Besides the business people asserted their land title in the community, nowadays some foreigners had resided and owned three houses in Ban Hua Laem community already. The interviewee had no idea on how could the foreigners buy that properties, as those houses located on the public land. Thus, nobody had the right to buy and see that land. 4.1 Communities' problems 1) The legitimate right on land ownership claimed by the business people on public land 2) The influences of Western culture among teenagers to follow the fashion, listen to a very loud music each ceremony, quarrel, ride a noisy motorcycle, have no willingness to work on fishery, but they prefer to work in the service oriented field after graduating from high school.

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3) Drug 4) Gamble among a group of housewife 5) The fugitive fled away from justice to hide in the community 4.2 The potential of future problems There was a concern on the bridge construction project across the island that once completed, it would welcome more people to access the community. These outsiders might cause problem later on. Even though the bridge was not currently completed yet, often times the community became a hiding place for an offender.

5. Conclusion and recommendation This research studies the government rehabilitation and relocation policy on the tsunami affected area in Thailand by taking national, provincial and communities' land usage into account. Ban Hua Laem and Ban Sang Ka-U communities in Koh Lanta island, Krabi province are chosen for case study to analyzes on the tsunami impacts, ranging from moderate to minor damage. Due to an uncomplicated damage, the selected communities portray entirely the implementation on rehabilitation policy in an objective result. Thus, the objective of this rehabilitation policy together with its management plan focuses mainly on economic recovery. Pertaining to the economic recovery efforts, if accomplish, it will help to distribute security and well-being to local communities. Apparently, tourism becomes a significant strategy of the government to recover economic after previous setbacks. It is noticed that the government policy on tourism receives such a great response from all levels of administration and management, ranging from regional, provincial, district and local, to put in to practice. The collaboration in terms of implementation is shown in details of each project and planning together with the local budget spent in executing the plan. Land, a physical mechanism, has been changed its utilization from local agriculture and original communities' dwelling to urban land use. The urban land use is for supporting tourism activities such as public assistance and public utility as well as the use of natural resources that have never seen before. However, an increasing number of tourists up to 200 percents leads to an enormous income source and an economic expansion of both local and district level. Nevertheless, the impact of using tourism strategy to rehabilitate and relocate the affected communities after natural disaster tsunami results in an unsustainable development to local communities. At present, sea gypsies, especially local people in Ban Hua Laem and Ban Sang Ka-U, Koh Lanta island are suffered from environmental degradation and social problems. Despite of the holistic picture that local people earn more income and live a modern lifestyle, they lose not only their form of livelihood that harmonizes with nature, but their community's identity based on the natural self-sufficient economy as well. Therefore, the current development path is not a truly rehabilitation. Yet, it is how the government encourages the communities to develop their vulnerability. Thus, the government should change its policy to support the develop program that help local people to build a strong community. This program may originate from small to big communities and from the level of district to province. In addition, any changes in land use should accompany with a vision plan to preserve natural resources and culture of the communities. This essential vision is a fundamental to a strong community, leading to land use for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the affected communities which will help to build a truly sustainable development.