Urban Wildlife in Bangkok
On the 3rd October 2019, a USL fellow got to attend the lecture at Urban Design and Development Center (UDDC) on the subject Designing & Rewilding City like a Forest System by Dr Saranarat Kanjanavanit. She told us about the London National Park City. There was a part where she mentioned a mass extinction which reminded me of the book “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert. This book has widened my perspective on the ecosystem and drawn me to be interested in mass extinction. After I contemplated the new ideas I got from the lecture and the background knowledge I had on the subject, I decided to have a conversation with people who loved wildlife and birds. Our partners, Prae, Nap and Em from Love Wild life and Bird Conservation Society of Thailand, gave us ideas on how the urban wildlife in Bangkok city lives and breathes.
Looking back to 10000 BC, it was a time when human happened. Human innovated fire, agriculture, cities, etc. We created numerous effects on the ecosystem.
The extinctions have been gradually escalated by human impacts. This planet had already had 5 mass extinctions. We are living through the 6th extinction. Yes, it is happening. There were many signs of mass extinction in the records; amphibians, mammals, or plants, they are decreasing at a horrendous rate. In the past, mass extinction happened for many reasons. It could be unfortunate natural hazards happened to the cycles, wrong places or wrong time. However, it is safe to say this world is not safe because of human activities. Deforestation, hunting, and pollution, these are just tiny parts of what we have been exploiting wildlife and urban wildlife’s habitat.
If we see a human as a part of nature, we could be cancer.
Nap told me how all the living things which are not domesticated are technically wildlife. If they live in a city, they are urban wildlife. It might sound weird to be called “wild” when pigeons or rats live by the gutters or concrete buildings, but yes, we call them urban wildlife.
Urban areas give huge impacts to ecosystem directly and indirectly. There were many attempts to solve the problems by increasing green areas either in the urban areas or rural areas. However, it was not an effective solution as the impacts on the ecosystem is not just how many square metres we have increased in the surroundings of the buildings. Because of the green areas which are deliberately designed, are not necessarily increasing the biodiversity of the areas. We could have large green areas in town, but with pest and weed control, the city will not be biodiverse. We can have big old trees which lower the temperature in the city, but if they are not native plants, the biodiversity might not increase.
In this article, we will discuss biodiversity in Bangkok context. We know life is hard for a human, but what about urban wildlife?
Many crises we are facing are not only affecting climate change or higher degrees of natural hazards. Nature is much more complicated. The balance we used to have is failing like divergent dominoes. We are living in a crucial lifetime to make a change whether humankind would live in how many more generations.
Before Bangkok became the city just like we live these days, Bangkok was located in wetland areas and fields. However, urban sprawls and bad decisions to develop the city in the past 100 years to fill in the canals and wetlands are taking its toll. Those areas are no longer healthy and permeable. Parks are not enough for Bangkokians and urban wildlife. The wildlife that used to be here are long gone and extinct.
In the time when Bangkok was not this packed, we used to have Schomburgk's deers, crab-eating macaques, saltwater crocodiles, boars, sarus crane, etc ("สัตว์ป่า ในบางกอก - National Geographic Thailand", 2019). Apart from hunting which was a major reason these animals were gone, they also lost their habitat. The current geography of the city also supports the alien species more than the native ones. Our beloved pigeons are the best example of this situation. Their best habitat is a cliff which is the most similar to the high-rise buildings we got in town. They are a lot easier to find than other indicator species to the biodiversity we have in Bangkok. For instance, Coppersmith Barbets usually make their nest holes. Therefore, they would need trees which big enough for them to fit in. This is a common indicator showing the areas are abundance. Lineated Barbets are even harder to spot in Bangkok, said Em, our partner from Bird Conservation Society of Thailand. Because their sizes are bigger than the Coppersmith Barbets, they would need bigger trees, and that indicates a better ecosystem.
When the Lineated Barbets leave the nest holes, squirrels would take up space. Fruits were eaten and spread around, leaving the seed to grow into new trees.
When the trees reach the time to reproduce, before they give the fruits to those Barbets, they are waiting for giant honeybees and butterflies to pollinate. Giant honeybees are also a very important indicator of biodiversity in Bangkok. They might look intimidating to many people but what if they are disappeared? The impacts on the ecosystem are deadly. Not having pollinators is going to disrupt the plant reproduction and the results will be escalated to the whole ecosystem.
Giant Honeybees got some more lucks than the butterflies. They can live at the building’s corners as their native habitat is tall trees. Unfortunately, they are not favoured by a human. Butterflies rely on more to plants as they lay eggs on plants, including the other phases of their lives. Not only indirect human activities that disrupt the habitat of bees and butterflies, pest control is also a major impact on them.
Practically, as we stand on nature’s side, we would like the Bangkokian’s livelihood to be closer to nature. We have further goals than just biodiversity or climate change issues. Technically, if more people care, the policymakers will need to listen to us. Even better, they could decide to do it themselves to prioritise nature base solution.
Supporting other living things to coexist with us in Bangkok might sound too novel and unreal. Bangkokian doesn’t want to live by a canal with Siamese crocodiles. We can start from having a nice clean canal with dragonflies which their prey on mosquitos. The public health sector would worry less about dengue fever. Prae, our partner from Love Wild Life, told us there is no need to go back to the primary forest where the ecosystem is just like hundreds of years ago. Having a healthy ecosystem for urban wildlife is already enough for us and them to have better life quality.
The current issues which have been going on at present are all connected. We call them Wicked Problems. Only one solution in one aspect will not solve the problems. There are social, economics, equality and so on which are connected to environmental issues as well. Developing well-being in a city could be a positive domino to others more than we realised.
As a researcher, I believe the wicked problems need all of us to solve. The biodiversity in urban areas is just one aspect of these problems. In the next article, we will discuss environmental economics.
Special Thanks to:
Danayarat Boonyatee
Napas Somsawad
Akekachoke Buranaanun
Urban Design and Development Center
Reference:
สัตว์ป่า ในบางกอก - National Geographic Thailand. (2019). Retrieved 22 October 2019, from https://ngthai.com/animals/4549/rewilding-bangkok/
Kolbert, E. (2014). The sixth extinction: An unnatural history. A&C Black.