Did you know that Australian Bottle Trees cannot survive in the extreme wet climate of northern Thailand? It seems fairly obvious that a tree accustomed to a very dry climate wouldn't survive very long in a tropical world. Tell that to the directors of the Chiang Mai Botanic Gardens, who just blew a ton of money on this hair-brained idea.
The moment of truth has come. The Australian bottle trees at the Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden in Chiang Mai are now either dead or dying. But then this is not unexpected, for the trees were planted at the wrong site in the first place.
In "Green Fingers" of September 30, 2007, I asked several questions which no one bothered to answer. Now I am down to just one question: How much of the people's tax money went into the clearing of the dipterocarp forest, purchase of the Australian trees and lawn grass, and wages of the labourers who did the planting?
Planted in an environment foreign to them, the bottle trees are being killed by pathogens and insect pests. This tree is still standing, but only because it is tethered to the ground.
This is now all water under the bridge, of course, but as taxpayers we deserve to know how our money was spent. Last year each bottle tree reportedly cost 700,000 baht; a reliable source has just told me that actually the trees cost between 200,000 and 300,000 baht each. If my question remains unanswered and the deal remains murky, could you blame me for wondering where the difference went?
Felling existing trees is not the only thing that I don't see eye to eye with the QSBG administrators. Taking board members on a pleasure trip to Europe in the guise of visiting botanic gardens is, I think, a sheer waste of money. Board members come and go and do not do actual work within the botanic garden; the three to four million baht spent on jaunts like this will be of more lasting benefit to the QSBG if used to send staff for further training, fund plant collecting expeditions, increase the seed bank, improve the nursery, label the plants or build a much needed souvenir shop.
Bangkok Post
2 Comments:
Your blog posts are amazing. I've been reading through all of the August archives, and will start on the Thai tagged ones next. I'm currently in Chiang Mai and have been reading other Thai blogs to compare people's impressions of the place. You are a very diligent blogger. I'm envious.
My travel blog is at http://www.nikdaum.com/news
I am so glad someone could write a blog to reveal a truth to let others know.
Infact, these Brachychiton are adapting well in Thailand and there are plenty of private collectors who grow them well. The problem is the larger imported ones are not easy to adapt and they are more likely to get damaged during the transplant which mostly ended up with many kind of Phytophthora attack their tissue. Besides that, there're a lot of wood eating beetles in the north as Chiangmai and many other problems they should have known before even realized to spent large amount of tax into such a waste. If you get to know someone in the project and you might know that the real cost of the whole damn "show" are just around 20% of what it published, no wonder where the other goes. It's quite common in Thailand that something like this happen one follow another, un acceptable but uncontrollable. Money rules!
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