The villagers of Ban Boon Rueang in northern Thailand had long known that they benefited from the community wetland forest that supplied them with fish and firewood, but it wasn’t until devastating floods in 2010 that they realised just how much.
That year, flooding from the Ing river which often spills its banks in the annual rainy season, was particularly severe, inundating several villages. Ban Boon Rueang escaped the worst of it because the 236-hectare wetland forest served as a buffer.
“If it weren’t for the wetland, our village would have also got flooded severely,” said Srongpol Chantharueang, chairman of the Boon Rueang Wetland Forest Conservation Group (BRWFCG).
“We realised then how important it was for us. That made us more aware of the threats to the wetland, and more determined to protect it,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as he walked…
