Two kinds of trash in the Gulf of Thailand.

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Two kinds of trash in the Gulf of Thailand.

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     Just a traffic jam away from Bangkok to the south west lies the industrial province of  Samut Prakarn (but everyone calls it by the old name: Paknam) perched on the mouth of the Chao Phraya River. 

     Thirty-five kilometres to the south east of Bangkok, just an hour's ride on the rickety single track train you come to Samut Sakhon province with the town Mahachai (still known by its earlier name), sitting at the mouth of the Tha Chin River.   

     These are two of the most prosperous areas in all Thailand.  The cause?  Fishing and the 5,000 fish processing factories the it has spawned. 

     The shallow Gulf of Thailand, stretches down to Malaysia in the West and Cambodia in the East.  Twenty-three rivers drain into the Gulf, and it teems with fish. Lots and lots of them. 

     At least that was so in the Seventies and Eighties. Then the Thai government offered people subsidies and cheap loans to buy the new trawlers imported from the Philippines.  Many Thais became boat owners for the first time ever. 

     They made huge profits from the plentiful fish supplies. Nineteen Eighty-eight, the best year, they netted nearly three million tons of fish.  

     Fish of all descriptions: anchovies, Indian mackerels, tuna, swordfish, along with crabs, lobsters,rays squid and sharks.  And Thailand became a major exporter of fish across the world, especially of course to the voracious Japan consumers.

     But it wasn't to last.  Too many boats chased too few fish.  And the fish stocks have plummeted year by year.  The catch per effort has dropped from 300 kilos an hour in 1961 down to 20 or 30 an hour in the 1990s. 

Trash fish:

     As the big fish have disappeared, the nets now catch smaller fish. Half of the catch these days is small fish. Some of these fish are the short-lived varieties that no one wants to eat.  Customers want the big varieties they know. And a third of this 'trash' fish catch is usually immature fish which should be allowed to grow before they are caught.  

     This 'trash' fish is not for eating:  it gets used as fish food in the artificial shrimp farms along the coast, or to make Nam Phlaa, Thailand's famous fish paste.  Up to a half of each catch these days will be 'trash' fish.  And of course it sells at lower prices.  But the trawler owners have to rely on the catches of 'trash' fish if they are to make any profits.

Trash fishermen: 

     Thais believe there is another kind of trash in the Gulf of Thailand: migrants. "Dirty, dangerous and criminal":  that is how they get painted by the Thai press. 

     Many migrants come to Thailand in search of a better life.  They get little opportunity in the neighbouring countries - Cambodia, Burma, Laos - to support their families and build a better future.   

     As the good times in Thailand began to roll again after the 1997 crash, Thais who were fishermen no longer wanted to do the 3D jobs (dirty, dangerous and degrading). They wanted cleaner work and better hours.  Instead, they found better paying jobs near Bangkok.  

     So the boat owners turned to the migrants instead. It seemed a win-win situation. The boat owners wanted to hire workers for lower wages because of their falling profits. And the migrants could earn up to five times what they could get at home.  Also,  they got a chance "to see the world", or so they thought.   

   Over two million migrants are now in Thailand.  Some legally and many illegally.  The hurdles to formally registering are formidable. Migrants have to go for regular medical checks at pre-arranged times and they must re-reister every few months.  This is impossible for those fishermen at sea for long periods. So the unregistered migrants become vulnerable to blackmail and abus  

     There are reports of some migrants' dead bodies having been thrown overboard, while out on a fishing trip. 

     In November 2007, a boatload of fishermen were alleged to have been poisoned while on board to enable the boat owner to avoid paying them three years wages they were owed. 

     In September 2006 800 migrants were hidden in a factory and made to work 12 hours a day and some phusically abused.  Although there was evidence they were trafficked, 200 were deported. 

     It is difficult to know how many boat owners mis-treat migrants.  But a study of employers by Mahidol University in 2006 found that half of the 316 employers interviewed agreed with the statement that "migrants should be locked up at night so they don't escape". 

     Thais may regard migrants as criminal, but the local police chief at Paknam says he has found no increase in crime due to the migrants.  If anything, he says, they are "sort of beneficial":  "they spend locally" and are clearly necessary. 

      He says that the only difficulty he has with "the migrant problem" is the complexity of government procedures. The system does not work and no one wants to fix it. 

     Yet one of the employers said that the main problem is the corruption of the police themselves, who often demand bribes.  This employer said that  the pattern of bribery, corruption and exploitation frustrated for him since it made his migrant workers very vulnerable.

     Of course there are good employers and bad ones.  But the good ones don't make the headlines.  Employers have an incentive to keep good fishermen:  they need stable crews who wiork well together.  And migrants are often willing, hard workers.  They too have every incentive to stay if the boat owners treat them well.