Dead sea turtle in Thailand shines spotlight on environmental impact of Loy Krathong festival
11 December, 2022
Last month, a dead sea turtle was washed ashore in Chonburi. It was identified as a female endangered green sea turtle aged about 20.
An examination by the Sea Turtle Conservation Centre in the Thai coastal province later showed its intestines were full of nylon string and fibre from fishing nets, plastic debris, nails and even pins.
Marine trash obstructed the animal’s gastrointestinal system and eventually killed it.
Among the culprits: The recent annual festival of Loy Krathong.
This case has sparked discussions about marine waste and the annual celebration of Loy Krathong – an old tradition in Thailand where people pay respects to the goddess of water on the full moon of the twelfth lunar month.
“Do fish and marine life know about preserving the Loy Krathong tradition? No, they don’t, but it makes their lives more difficult,” said Tanawan Sintunawa, vice president and secretary general of the Green Leaf Foundation.
The foundation was established in 1998 by various organisations both in the public and private sectors to promote environmentally friendly tourism in Thailand. Loy means to float in Thai language while krathong means a container. The container is a traditional offering usually made from banana leaves and stems, sometimes styrofoam, and decorated with flowers, candles and incense sticks.
Many of them also contain nails, pins and staples used to hold different components together.
This year, the Tourism Authority of Thailand promoted the event as “one of Thailand’s most popular and most visually stunning annual festivals”, and invited tourists to experience “the beauty, charm, and culture” of Loy Krathong celebrations on Nov 8 nationwide.
In just over two weeks, however, the country learnt about the dead sea turtle, whose life was cut short by marine trash.
According to the veterinarian who carried out the autopsy, the endangered animal – whose shell measures 96.5 cm in length and 90 cm in width – had swallowed a large amount of ocean waste it was unable to digest and died from drowning.
“The total dry weight of fishing net debris is about 100 g,” the Sea Turtle Conservation Centre wrote on its Facebook page on Nov 27.
“But if they’re combined with all the food residue and other kinds of trash in the intestines, the weight is more than 2 kg.”
AN OFFERING OR FLOATING TRASH?
News of the dead sea turtle has led to calls for a more sustainable and responsible way to celebrate the festival of Loy Krathong so that the annual event would not harm the environment.
Tanawan said the key problem about Loy Krathong is a lack of public awareness regarding the environmental impact.
“We let them have one-sided awareness – the celebration,” he told CNA.
“But we don’t talk about how the Loy Krathong festival makes the river cleaner or how it benefits the goddess of water. This is just one of many cultural activities we carry out without understanding the true meaning. If we want to pay respects to the river or water, we shouldn’t put trash in there, right?”
For Tanawan, the festival of Loy Krathong can be celebrated in a more sustainable manner, focusing on the protection of rivers, streams and canals.
“It’s good to preserve our culture but we only do half of it,” he said.
“We’re only happy when the time comes to celebrate, play music and float the krathongs. We don’t consider whether it’s good or bad to float 4-5 million krathongs weighing hundreds of tonnes in water sources.”
Ahead of the Loy Krathong celebration this year, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) spokesperson Ekwaranyu Amrapan called on the public to float their offering containers collectively and stressed the importance of preserving the tradition as well as the environment.
“The public should do it together, that is one container for one family, one couple, one group of people or one organisation. Choose a container that is made from natural materials, small in size and comprised of just a few elements to facilitate waste segregation,” he said on Nov 8, adding that such containers are to be turned into organic fertiliser.
This year, a total of 572,602 offering containers were collected by BMA in the capital city alone. It is 42 per cent higher than last year, when 403,235 such containers were retrieved from water sources in Bangkok.
Data from BMA showed that 95.7 per cent of those collected this year were made from natural materials – down from 96.6 per cent in 2021.
“The ratio of styrofoam containers went up from 3.5 per cent to 4.3 per cent,” BMA reported last month.
PRESERVING LOY KRATHONG RESPONSIBLY
The death of the endangered green sea turtle is just one example of a serious problem affecting marine life in Thailand.
Many of them cannot determine what is food or marine trash and suffer internal lacerations or blockages after eating debris.
“Is it true that ‘krathongs’ kill mother turtles? We got the answer to this question in less than a month after the Loy Krathong festival,” prominent Thai marine scientist Thon Thamrongnawasat from Kasetsart University wrote on his Facebook page on Nov 28.
“The mother turtle died from what humans believe is a way to thank the water and ask for blessings. But it ended with the death of a rare marine animal,” he added.
Thailand is the fifth biggest contributor to ocean waste globally.
A 2015 report by Washington DC-based environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy showed more than half of plastic waste in the ocean originated from five rapidly growing economies – China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.
Still, there are ways for the environment and culture to coexist.
“If you really want to participate in the Loy Krathong festival, you have to tie a string to the bottom of the container. Let it float for 100-200m and pull it back,” Tanawan from the Green Leaf Foundation suggested.
“Once your activity is completed – you’ve already made your wishes or asked for forgiveness – wait for the candles and incense sticks to go out and pull back the container, or walk downstream and wait to collect it,” he added.
The container should then be disassembled and disposed of properly, Tanawan said, instead of being left as trash in the waterways.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com