Budget sought for reefs in the South

In her birthday speech this week, Her Majesty mentioned a royal project on artificial coral reefs in Pattani.

"Locals there are fishermen," Suwit said yesterday, "The presence of artificial coral reefs means a lot to their livelihood".

According to Suwit, his ministry has some 4,000 cement poles in hand already but will need 5,000 more to form artificial coral reefs along a 5,000metre coastline in Pattani's Nong Chik district.

"We plan to plant bamboo sticks along the coast to create artificial mangrove forests as well," Suwit said.

He said his ministry had a Bt3billion budget earlier for artificial coral reefs and forestation programmes, but the Budget Bureau had withdrawn the money.

"So, we will request to get this money back, plus some extra budget," the minister said.

Phuket Marine Biological Centre director Wannakiat Taptimsaeng said coral reefs now spanned over 96,000 rai on Thailand's seabed.

"More than 50,000 rai is in the Andaman Sea, and the rest in the Gulf of Thailand," he said.

Wannakiat said The tsunami in late 2004 had made people more aware of how important coral reefs are.

"Of the coralreef areas in the Andaman Sea, the ratio of abundant to degraded ones now stands at 70:30," Wannakiat said.