And while it is easy to be critical of this urbanisation of what was not long ago a sleepy, heavily forested and undeveloped island, when we want a late-night bottle of milk or unhealthy sugar-laden snack, these manifestations of “progress” are used by all of us at one time or another.
However, while we all enjoy the benefits of convenient shopping, that doesn’t mean these outlets have to be built without any tree cover, does it?
Trees are not just pretty window-dressing around shopping malls and domestic residences, they play a vital ecological role in many ways and are actually essential for good human health.
For example, green foliage provides vital habitat for birds and small mammals and trees cleanse the air of pollutants such as nitrogen and sulpher dioxide from industry and carbon dioxide from car exhausts.
And guess what? Convenience stores and shopping mall car parks are full of car exhaust!
Just one hundred trees can “eat” five tons of carbon dioxide in a year, so imagine how much more pleasant shopping would be with the shade and air cleansing properties of lots of nice leafy trees as part of the experience.
Trees even save money for the shop or property owner. Just three trees, strategically-placed around a house, have been shown to reduce the annual air conditioning bill by half. Think how much Mister Tesco, or Khun Big C could save by reducing the heat-trapping properties of their shopping centres through a healthy covering of trees.
Yet every Phuket shopping mall offers a virtual wasteland of blistering concrete in which to park. A few spindly saplings attempt to battle against the searing heat and establish themselves, but what happened to all the healthy mature trees that were bulldozed out of the way to build the mall in the first place? Why not build around them, or at least re-plant them once the concrete pouring boys have finished their devilish work?
SHADY BOULEVARDS
And while we are at it, where are all Phuket’s leafy parks and boulevards?
Every great city boasts such green public places where one can walk a dog, or stroll hand-in-hand with a loved one. London has Hyde Park, New York has Central Park and San Francisco has Golden Gate Park. Even congested cities like Hanoi and Delhi have shady boulevards, but where are Phuket’s?
We started with almost total tree cover on this island and now there’s virtually no wild forest left, just the soil-degrading monoculture of rubber and palm oil trees… and hardly any walking boulevards in sight!
Trees can even save lives as they bind the topsoil of hillside residential developments and absorb all that monsoon rainfall, then slowly release it back into the environment through transpiration.
Phuket has experienced many mudslides in heavy rains with buildings being left precariously balanced, or washed down hillsides. Last August’s appalling flood disaster from the Big Buddha car park on Nakkerd Hill which left 13 dead, is just the latest in a long list of such catastrophes which have resulted from rapacious, tree-killing development, much of it illegal.
We should make substantial tree cover an integral, even legally-mandated, part of every development to save future lives and increase human happiness. This is no idle tree-huggers claim…. trees really do make us happier.
Many scientific studies have shown that office workers who can see trees as they toil are more productive and get sick less often than those in enclosed environment which are baron of plant life. Prisoners and hospital patients who share their living spaces with plants and trees show accelerated rates of release for good behaviour, or recovery from illness.
It’s patently obvious that humans and trees were designed to live and thrive together. So, why doesn’t Phuket start practicing what it preaches in all those glossy brochures showing residential and commercial developments with abundant happy people walking around among abundant happy trees?
Thailand’s beloved former King Rama 9, was an ardent supporter of agro-forestry and tree protection, surely the very least we can do is follow his advice and save the trees for our own economic and emotional good.