Into Thailand's Lost World - When John Gray discovered collapsed island caves and pristine lagoons, he never dreamed they could be destroyed by too many visitors

International Wildlife, Nov-Dec, 2000 by Anthony Mecir

"We wanted to fight (along) with John too. We did not want to pay. But we realized that in Thailand there are often forces more powerful than the government. We decided to pay," says Thiti Mokapun, a lawyer and businessman who heads Sea Cave Canoe, the first company that sprang up to compete with Gray.

Thiti's pragmatic approach may have been sensible because the threats were no idle bluster. On the morning of October 28, 1998, two men appeared on a motorcycle. One of them strode up to Sea Canoes' operations manager Panwong "Pan" Hirunchai and coolly shot him in the stomach and right knee and, apparently aiming for his temple, riddled a biceps. The mild-mannered Pan was saved after massive blood transfusions and an eleven-hour operation. No arrests were ever made.

For his part, Gray remained aloof. Some branded him arrogant. He refused to join the Phuket Paddle Club for Environmental Protection. That group, made up of Sea Canoe's competitors, agreed to set a quota of 300 boats a day, to police improper behavior and to ask the government to pull the bird nest collectors out of the park when their concessions expire in 2001.

Such measures were not enough for Gray. The island havens he'd discovered were living snapshots of a distant past. In the 10 years since he'd found them-just a smidgen of time in a geological saga stretching back 75 million years-the sea caves had suffered irrevocable change-"From total serenity to a rock concert situation," Gray says bitterly.

And so had the surrounding environment: the bay's waters and the largest expanse of mangroves in Thailand, lush breeding grounds for sea life and more than 70 plant species. In these mangroves, karsts and caves of Phangnga, Gray says he encounters fewer and fewer of the area's 16 recorded bird species-which include the ashy tailor bird, the blue rock thrush and the peregrine falcon-or its reptilian residents. Sightings are rarer of the Asian reticulated python, which grows to more than 30 feet. Or a newly discovered species of the venomous green- banded cat eye snake. Or a sleek striped cave racer caught by flashlight swallowing a bat.

Tourism is not the bay's only culprit. Locals, many of them poor, have long been chipping away at mangrove vegetation which is sold to make charcoal. To snare the sea's shrinking bounty, some fishermen have turned to dynamite, trawling and push nets.

But ecotourism ranks high among the offenders. Aiming to preserve, it has accomplished precisely the opposite: a stark warning that the fastest growing subsector of what has become the world's largest industry-tourism-can cut both ways.

Given problems with definitions, it's difficult to ascertain numbers. But if one regards ecotourism as any kind of travel involving nature, then statistics from The World Tourism Organization and The Ecotourism Society indicate as many as 400 million people worldwide will take ecoholidays this year. And the numbers grow 10 to 15 percent each year. Ecotourism operations range from remote lodges in the rain forests of Belize to treks across the Himalayas in Nepal. There are photo safaris in Kenya and cruises to Antartica and the Galapagos Islands.