While I was on the subject of my own crackpot, unproven theories and in the mood to rant about the weather - that English passion - the following article fell off the Ele-Newswire and got me thinking.

   I am no climate change denier, no scientific skeptic here, I've seen and absorbed 'An Inconvenient Truth' - even tried to read the book about 100 years ago (but gave up I'm afraid) - still drive my car but I have to admit I'm picking up on the theory and working on the practice.

   But I have been watching with interest over the past few years in Thailand the news reports of flood and drought - how can an area that was flooded three months previously now be suffering from a drought?  Was something being lost in translation or is it another case of disaster envy and bored journalism?  ...or was something else happening here?

   Before I continue I should point out that I don't measure the weather in Kanchanaburi or in Thatoom (though K. Lord and all the foundation mahouts and rescued elephants hale from that area, lack of fodder and water being one reason given for their neighbours' elephants still being on the streets).

   There may indeed be a fully functioning drought in the areas mentioned in the article, but for my little piece let us concentrate on the Golden Triangle.

   I measure the weather up here in the Golden Triangle and I can say that over the, extremely short, three year period I have been watching the rainfall the patterns have been relatively unchanged - so why do we, even up here, claim drought and flood disasters on a yearly cycle?

   At first I thought it was pure disaster envy, a case of mistaking the dry season for a drought and the wet season for flood and trying to blame everyone else (Chinese damming the river, poor farmers slashing and burning) but then I came up with another theory; land use, at least up here, is changing dramatically - even over the three years I've been paying attention.

   Fifty years ago there was a low human population density and lots of trees, the opium and logging years changed all that, culminating in giant floods and the banning of logging in 1989.  The forests began to grow back and the hills grew bamboo scrubland which, if left alone, would eventually turn into forest.  The denuded opium fields were re-forested (or at least had trees planted - the difference between the two is another blog) by projects such as Doi Tung and equilibrium was restored.

   But in the past few years I have noticed a change in the Golden Triangle, the bamboo scrub, previously 'useless' land because you couldn't grow rice on it, is being cleared to make way for citrus, rubber and pineapple plantations.  The human population is also increasing with more industry and, yes, more hotels - though both Anantara and Four Seasons work with their own catchment systems and so do not stress the infrastructure.

   All of these new plantations require vast amounts of irrigation but the water catchment infrastructure doesn't appear to have been upgraded, water's free isn't it? - falls from the sky.  So perhaps even if the normal amount of rain falls and the normal amount is caught in reservoirs, streams, natural ponds and springs; from the moment the rains stop water is pumped, piped and drained away from the storage in ever greater quantities and thus runs out faster than previously.  DROUGHT.

   Then it rains, where there was bamboo scrub there is now bare, weeded earth between the revenue generating plants, the water runs off far faster than it would have done, taking soil with it, and leads to rapid fluctuations in the rivers and streams.  FLOOD.

   Now, this is just a theory, and may not even be the case for the areas spoken about below - no doubt the wild eles are having difficulty finding water (but one method of irrigation seen increasing in the Golden Triangle involves running pipes into forested areas and into natural ponds high up in the forest and draining them) but as with yesterday's little rant - it is the poor farmers that tend to get the blame in the press, I'm sure they don't help (but feel they have no option and are, after all, just doing what they've always done).

   Perhaps, just perhaps, the commercial farming is becoming an issue too?

   ...and with that I'll hand you over to a professional journalist and a story relating to eles - apologies for another little weather rant!
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Food shortages force jumbos out of jungles