DONEZO

A happy shrimp farmer--LOOK AT HIS SHIRT!

     After several days of trekking through the mud, getting stuck in the mud, and smelling like mud, the project is COMPLETE. The Si Kao group, the final group of pond samples, turned out to be the most challenging. For some reason, the roads were even less navigable than the previous two groups' roads, and we encountered some resistance from the people whose ponds we wanted to sample. Perhaps more people have come through trying to sample the ponds near Si Kao, or they experienced some sort of treachery by another person or group trying to sample the ponds, but for whatever reason, people just sort of chose to ignore us. We ended up being able to get through to most of them, and there was only one instance where the pond owner did not allow us to sample the water, but it was still a somewhat jarring experience given the amount of kindness with which we had been treated in Palian and Kan Tang (people asked us to come eat with them and offered shelter from the rain!).
     I finished the final water quality tests, and have not yet digitized my paper and pencil physical log, but the data is all taken down. I have not made any conclusions about the things I learned, and I have not analyzed the data to closely because my father and I are taking some much earned R&R at another beautiful resort in Krabi, which is the neighboring province to Trang. I wish I would have gotten a shirt or tank top or something from Trang because it is certainly a place I will always remember, but I suppose some souvenir from Krabi will have to be a stand-in. Over the next few weeks, I will be between Krabi, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Buri Ram. If all goes well, I will also spend some time in my beloved Spain.
     This project and my summer travels have already been truly fascinating. Thanks to all of those who made this possible--my professor, Mary Killilea, without whom I could never have designed such an elegant project, NYU's Dean's Undergraduate Research Fund, and most of all my father. I will update this blog again once Mary and I begin analyzing the data upon my return to the United States, and everyone should look forward to reading the final report on my findings! Stay tuned!

Departure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thailand_Trang_locator_map.svg

With my GPS unit and sunscreen in tow, I am preparing to depart my beloved city for a month/month and a half to travel around Thailand with my father. Although the original purpose of the trip was to visit him, I have paired my Southeast Asialand excursion with a research project that is being funded by CAS's Dean's Undergraduate Research Fund. I will post about the details of the project for any interested science nerds later, but basically I am analyzing shrimp aquaculture practices in a southern Thai province called Trang. Neither my father nor I have ever been there, but when you google Trang Province Thailand, the search returns tons of photos of those stereotypical Thai rock islands covered in vegetations...

My first thought about this project is of paternalism. The nature of my study does not include making direct recommendations to shrimp farmers about how to manage their ponds, but I can't help but think about what the implications of my results could be. Clearly, aquaculture in the scorched earth method that these shrimp farmers appear to be employing damages mangrove forests. There is no way around this fact. But who am I, as a privileged westerner, to tell these Thai shrimp farmers that they should stop cultivating shrimp crops? Perhaps for some of them, the shrimp ponds are the only source of income. To someone fighting to keep food consistently on the table, the plight of the mangroves is likely to fall away behind concerns of survival. What kinds of solutions can we imagine that not only resolve the poverty of the farmer while also maintaining the integrity of the mangroves?

I think the template for this blog is stupid, but I don't have the time or the know-how to quickly change it... Thanks for reading!