Phuket Environment | The Phuket News

Green Thoughts: A troupe of oddballs

Sunday 5 May 2024 02:00 PM

Twice recently friends have excitedly described an encounter with a tree they had never seen before. An understandable response. After all, the cannonball [couroupita guianensis] in full flower is a truly spectacular sight. A denizen of dense jungles with large elliptical leaves up to twenty inches long shed twice a year,the tree has arrived in Thailand relatively recently from Central America.

Natural Phuket: Hidden wildlife in plain sight

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 28 April 2024 02:00 PM

Here in Phuket we have a few large birds of prey that are fairly common even in a busy place like Patong. I do mean the avian type with wings and feathers and not the nocturnal type as seen more commonly down Bangla Rd.

Green Thoughts: Bees in my bonnet

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 7 April 2024 02:00 PM

As the years come and go, my garden is undergoing a metamorphosis. It is ageing more gracefully than its owner: its earlier character as a garden of herbaceous borders, small shrubs and annuals replaced by what is fast becoming a riotous jungle ‒ a sort of Rousseau-esque ‘retour à l’état de nature’ where flowering shrubs have become trees and vines have crept and clambered everywhere.

Still living in ‘Natural Phuket’

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 31 March 2024 11:00 AM

So many people when deciding on where to go for their holidays look at the photos in a brochure or on the internet. What do they have to go on? Well, they have the reviews written by others who have been there. They have the photos from the tourism department of that country or destination, the word of mouth from others who have been there, or stories from people who know someone who has been there.

Sustainably Yours: What bottled water really does to you

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 10 March 2024 11:00 AM

Drive by any SuperCheap, 7-Eleven, Lotus’s or Big C and you will see hundreds of plastic water bottles in front of the store baking in the hot tropical sun. You will also see both Thais and expats eagerly carrying palettes of them back to their cars. The question that has always puzzled me is, why?

Green Thoughts: Turning over a new leaf

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 3 March 2024 02:00 PM

As anyone who lives here can testify, green leaves are as crucial to Thai cuisine as lettuce is to a Western salad or mint to English roast lamb. Among the most widely used are coriander leaves: the herb grows more readily in Thailand than in the temperate climes of Europe where the crushed, dried seeds are commoner ingredients in recipes.

Landing the Doomsday fish

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 3 March 2024 11:00 AM

A rare ‘Naga fish’ caught in the waters west of Phuket has been sent to the National Science Museum to be studied and its carcass will be put on display during an exhibition after the research is complete.

Green Thoughts: The root of the matter

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 4 February 2024 02:00 PM

After my previous article on spicy additions to your garden, where should I carry on? Well I’m going to start at the vegetative source ‒ with bulbs and roots – and leave the leaves till last. The most powerfully pungent bulbs in Southeast Asia, as in most corners of the globe, belong to the lily (liliaceae) family. And of these ‒ onions, shallots, chives and garlic ‒ the last named (allium sativum) is the most widely used.

Green Thoughts: The Spice of Life

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 14 January 2024 02:00 PM

I recently went searching for spice seeds. I needed them for pictures that could accompany my updated scribblings about herbs and spices, and also for some experimental cultivation in containers. I found more than I had bargained for, including such exotic stuff as dried butterfly pea flowers (clitoria ternatea), liquorice root, star anise and fenugreek. Not the everyday flavourings I am writing about today. But the foray reinforced my oft-stated belief that there is no end to the cornucopia of flavours we are lucky enough to savour in Thailand. Now acknowledged as one of the great cuisines of the world, it owes much of its status to the amazingly varied produce of the Kingdom.

Sustainably Yours: Learning to breathe

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 31 December 2023 11:00 AM

As we continue through the high season, restaurants and hotels are enjoying the time of year when they earn most of their money. But for residents of the island, it can turn what would normally be a quick trip to the market into a 30-minute ordeal with soul crushing bumper-to-bumper traffic. Each year, the situation worsens because of more people settling on the island and developers constructing housing without proper infrastructure.

The Annual Report: Easy on the eye, easy on the pocket

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 24 December 2023 02:00 PM

All gardeners have heard of annuals, biennials and perennials: If pressed, they will tell you that annuals are plants that bloom only once, and will need to be re-planted or re-sown the following year. Biennials, on the other hand, generally flower the year after they have been installed and then give up the ghost, while perennials, in the right conditions, will come back year after year.

How to eat sustainably in Phuket

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 17 December 2023 11:00 AM

With The United Nations Climate Change Conference (AKA COP 28), finishing on Dec 12 and the constant reminders that we are not hitting our climate emission targets on the news. You might wonder what you can do to live more sustainably.

‘Nature Red in Tooth and Claw’

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 12 November 2023 11:00 AM

Tennyson observed in his 1855 poem ‘Maud’ that ‘the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey’. The wood is part of a Victorian garden but the poet might just as well have been talking about your flower beds in Phuket.

Green Thoughts: Bad guys in your garden

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 22 October 2023 11:00 AM

Insects are everywhere. One million different species is probably an underestimate. And while most arthropoda are in decline, victims of pesticides and loss of habitat, your average gardener in Phuket will attest that these critters still lurk everywhere in his carefully tended flower beds and vegetable plots.

The Nai Harn receives Gold level Green Hotel award

Phuket Life / Environment

Monday 11 September 2023 02:30 PM

In recognition of its commitment to sustainability, THE NAI HARN Phuket was recently awarded, for the second time in a row, the “Gold Level” Green Hotel Award from Thailand’s Department of Environmental Quality Promotion, which is part of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Plants entering joint ventures

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 10 September 2023 12:30 PM

Plants are generally better than humans at being good neighbours. Not always, as we shall see, but most of the time. Much of this cooperation goes on unseen and below ground, Examples include so-called ‘mother trees’ that protect the delicate root systems of saplings from invaders, or transfer water from a relatively wet environment to drier inland areas by holding moisture in their roots in a kind of water-borne relay.

Solving the Climate Crisis

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 27 August 2023 11:00 AM

Palmer Owyoung is a long-term Phuket expat who lives on Phuket’s central west coast. For years, Palmer penned the ‘Sustainably Yours’ column for The Phuket News, through which many people became familiar with his writing, and his thinking.

The future’s green with SALA Farmlife!

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 20 August 2023 12:30 PM

With the ever-increasing transition to a greener and more sustainable world, it was with interest that my partner and I recently headed to SALA Phuket Mai Khao to check out their new eco-friendly initiative ‘Farmlife’.

Taking a tour of the green

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 6 August 2023 02:00 PM

Last year, I visited friends near Kalasin. Deep in the heart of Isan. Driving north past interminable paddy fields was a dispiriting experience. Barely ‒ and the adverb conveys a literal truth ‒ a tree in sight. Tight-fisted husbandry had meant their remorseless eradication, either because they siphoned up too much precious water, or because the space was needed for the main subsistence crop: rice.

More palms for your garden

Phuket Life / Environment

Sunday 16 July 2023 02:00 PM

In our last foray into the subject of palms, I referred to the coconut and its more elegant cousin, the foxtail palm or wodyetia. Like other species such as royal, Bismarck, date and oil palms, they all possess a single trunk crowned with massive fronds. It’s how the layman thinks of palms.

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