Ban Nai Nang, a small coastal village in Thailand, has been "saved by bees," so to speak.
Mongabay reported on a conservation victory there, a place where mangrove forests are an essential way of life. These unique coastal ecosystems sustain local fish and shellfish harvesting, provide habitat for threatened species like sharks, and help to store planet-heating carbon.
Now, the village is helping to protect this vital habitat while earning residents supplemental income as part of a pioneering foray into beekeeping. Today, the village cares for about 1,200 beehives, with 32 families involved in beekeeping.
In 2020, they produced more than 47 gallons of honey — this collectively raised $8,250 from raw honey and processed products like shampoo and lotions, which they sell to hotels and tourists. Each family can make up to $82 per month, which is a significant supplement to their primary incomes, the publication noted.
Meanwhile, those bees — the group first focused on the Asian honey bee, but have now branched out to nearly a dozen native stingless bees — are helping to restore the nearby mangrove forests through pollination services, according to the article. Ten percent of the honey profits also go back into community conservation efforts to support mangrove protection.
This is vitally important, as mangrove coverage in Thailand dropped from about 869,811 acres in 1961 to less than around 395,369 acres by 1996 — about 80% of Ban Nai Nang's mangroves had disappeared by the mid-1990s, Suthee Pankawan, president of the village's community enterprise group, told Mongabay.
The country launched mangrove conservation efforts around that time, and today total coverage has rebounded to about 613,810 acres. The publication asserted that community-led mangrove conservation efforts have proved the most effective in Thailand.
Mangroves are an important ecosystem featuring unique trees and shrubs, and they can be found across the world in intertidal zones.
According to The Nature Conservancy, these environments provide natural infrastructure that helps nearby communities by reducing erosion and absorbing storm surge impacts during extreme weather events like hurricanes. The complex root systems provided by mangrove trees and shrubs also help filter nitrates, improving water quality flowing from rivers and streams into the ocean.
They are also important carbon sinks, according to the organization, providing a nature-based solution to the overheating of our planet. Here's TCD's guide to taking local climate action for more information on how to help.
Ban Nai Nang isn't planning on stopping anytime soon. Now, the community is training local schools and other villages on how to follow its community conservation model with bees. So far, they've prepped 15 community groups and plan to expand to four more communities before the end of 2024.
Pankawan noted the importance of offering value to community members when designing conservation programs.
"We found that focusing on conservation work alone and building awareness is not enough," he told Mongabay. "We believe there is a need to have income as an incentive, then sustainability will follow."
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
