KUL PUNYAWONG
‘Imay have started my new life at a later age,” says well-known conservationist Kul Punyawong, 55, “but it’s not too late.” In 2012, Ms Kul returned to her home province of Nan, where she and her friends bought a 60-rai plot of mostly rubber plantation with a small rice field in Tha Wang Pha district, a watershed area of the Nan River.
Now it is known as Chumchon Ba Ton Nam Nan, a small community to help people learn about sustainable practices. It aims to prove that humans can have healthy lives and enough to eat while maintaining biodiversity.
When Ms Kul took over the area, the lifeless soil had been damaged by the previous owner’s heavy use of chemicals, while the land was surrounded by extensive monoculture farms that had severely reduced biodiversity.
The area is the source of the Nan, one of four major rivers that flow into the Chao Phraya. Old photographs show expansive lush greenery on Nan’s mountain ranges, in contrast to today’s scene of hills left brown and barren from singlecrop farming.
Downstream during the rainy season, the Nan River experiences regular flooding attributed to upstream deforestation. Drought, too, has been more severe in recent years, with the effect being felt in central Thailand and Bangkok.
Ms Kul adopted King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s principle of self-sufficiency known as the “three types of wood, four benefits, five layers of vegetation” strategy.
The three types of wood are those which can be used for building materials, food and household uses. The four benefits are for household supplies, food, economic improvement, and water and soil preservation. The five layers refer to tuber crops, creepers, shrubs, understorey trees and tall-canopy trees.
Before returning to Nan, Ms Kul learned these principles through her work as a conservationist for the Thai Rak Pa Foundation.
She managed several communities in watershed areas of the North, encouraging them to preserve the forest, but never got her own hands dirty. When she started up her land, she felt for the first time that the King’s theory had profound meaning.
“It made me feel happy. Using my hands working with the soil is like being reborn. It’s the best thing that ever happened in my life,” she told Spectrum.
She and her team planted over 4,000 plants across 61 native species, including the endangered Afzelia xylocarpa, padauk, iron wood and Hopea.
A variety of food plants was grown, while some rubber trees were retained alongside the forest trees.
Her team rehabilitated 25 plant species in the land. Ponds were dug in accordance with her calculations for proper water use.
In four years, the ecology has been revitalised. Ms Kul and her team have recorded 82 bird species, including migratory ones.
Over 10 species of plants grow at the bank of the water source adjacent to their land. Only one type of weed was found when they first arrived.
When the worst drought in decades hit Thailand from 2014 to the middle of this year — a result of the strong El Nino phenomenon that disrupted global weather patterns — Ms Kul wasn’t much affected despite widespread water shortages across the nation.
The Ministry of Agricultural and Cooperatives estimated the agricultural sector lost more than 15 billion baht from the impact of drought between January last year and April this year, with about 2.87 million rai of farmland affected.
Ms Kul’s initiative became a model for other people, including farmers interested in sustainable farming and urban people looking to make their lives greener. Not all of her visitors from the cities have 60 rai to cultivate, but they take ideas they can adapt.
Her immediate neighbours have been more reticent, and she knows it will take time for local monoculture farmers to move towards her methods. They have long been attached to single crops, which rely heavily on fertilisers and the markets large companies offer.
But she believes they will change. Multicrop farming practice will expand beyond the boundary of her land one day, especially when the communities have been challenged by natural disasters and climate change.
“The ability to depend on ourselves is the only way for us to survive. It’s the way to pass down a liveable world to the next generations. The King pointed out this way. We learn and adapt. It’s like he always exists,” Ms Kul said.
Ms Kul learned that her first step to achievement was far more than just being self-sufficient.
The long life of the King taught her to be patient and persistent, working for good things without the expectation of any reward.