Photo courtesy of Driven2Travel
What do long-tailed macaques and fishermen have in common? They both like seafood!
I don’t want to share the name of this village in Thailand because this is a fragile environment and too much tourism would distort the economy here to the detriment of the natural environment.
Photo courtesy of Driven2Travel.
The local economy is based upon farming cockles. This is an arduous process involving the seeding and re-seeding of cockle beds over several years to bring the crop up to a marketable size. Sadly the farmers are so poor they are easy prey for the middle men who make the most money from the trade just because they have the means to transport the product to market on their trucks. Some local cockle farmers are forming a cooperative in the hope of controlling the price.
Photo courtesy of Driven2Travel
To cap it all they now have to contend with pollution from a food processing plant recently built just up the coast near Bangkok. The biggest farmer sold the majority of his cockle beds a few years ago and has built an ugly tourist hostel on stilts in the middle of the bay.
Photo courtesy of Driven2Travel
The farmers revere the long-tailed macaques who inhabit the mangrove.
There is a shrine on stilts where one of them leaves a votive offering every morning. There are about a thousand long-tailed macaques living in 20 colonies in this area which has protected status thanks to a Princess’ interest.
Photo courtesy of Driven2Travel.