How the initiative to release blue crabs is helping preserve the marine ecosystem
As many as 200,000 young blue crabs were released at Koh Set Island in Chaiya district of Surat Thani province last week in a bid to preserve the marine ecosystem and food security in the Gulf of Thailand.
This preserved island under the Department of Fisheries has an abundant ecosystem that allows blue crabs and others like shrimps and shells to grow, said Jarin Choeichoeychom, chairman of an environmental preservation fishery group in Ban Phum Riang community.
Surat Thani is facing a crisis of marine waste, leading to a decline in aquatic animals due to difficulties they encounter in finding places to hide.
“More than 100 kilograms of waste were found in the community’s fishing area,” he said, adding that 50% of them came from water channels in areas nearby when the water level rises.
Releasing blue crabs back to nature
To preserve the marine ecosystem in the community, the group has launched community tourism campaigns aimed at boosting awareness among tourists and locals nearby since 2006, whether it was waste collection, growing mangroves or releasing blue crabs.
Jarin noted that the crab-release project initiated by ready-to-eat food producer and distributor CPRAM had helped boost awareness of the issue and had created a collaboration between the government and the private and public sectors in Surat Thani province.
“Releasing blue crabs has resulted in an increase of crabs and other marine species,” he said, adding that the project had helped increase the community’s fishery outcome by 50 per cent.
He advises government agencies to pay attention to environmental preservation, such as using tourism as a tool to support coastal resource management. He also said that coexistence of the marine ecosystem and people was necessary.
Surat Thani Governor Jessada Jitrat affirmed that blue crabs were important economic animals for Thailand. “It is a good project that has helped boost income, recover marine resources and increased the survival rate of blue crabs in Chaiya district and other parts of the Gulf of Thailand,” he said.
The governor believes that the province’s plentiful ecosystem would sustainably allow blue crabs to grow and support the food chain, which would also maintain food security for consumers, generate income for locals and stimulate the economy in Thailand.
Environment and food security
As a subsidiary of giant Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group, CPRAM said the project over the past 12 years had aimed to inspire other agencies to embark on the environmental preservation journey.
The company confirmed that this project would be continued to ensure a sustainable number of blue crabs in the Thai sea. “We are not planning this project in coastal provinces across Thailand, but others must see this project as a role model that they can follow,” said its managing director, Wiset Wisitwinyu.
When asked why blue crabs must be released when they are young, Wiset confirmed that button-size crabs are able to swim, escape, hide and search for foods based on their instinct. One mother crab releases around 100,000 offspring but only 20,000 would survive, he pointed out.
“Of the 200,000 crabs we released, we would be able catch only half of them. And the half would become breeders of many more crabs,” he explained, “If we continue the project and it can preserve the marine resource and careers, it makes our supply chain sustainable.”
He thanked the Surat Thani locals’ initiative to place coconut leaves in the pond, which enable crabs to learn how to hide from predators.
The CPRAM chief stressed that collaboration among relevant sectors was important because releasing blue crabs in unpreserved areas would result in an unexpected outcome.
“The previous project in Ranong province faced difficulty because crabs could not hide themselves in the sand effectively,” Wiset added.
Major marine polluter
Marine debris is among major environmental issues in Thailand, especially plastic waste of which about 10-15% are not managed properly.
Plastic waste impacts the environment directly as some of it could be harmful to marine species like turtles, dolphins and whales. Meanwhile, seafood could be contaminated with microplastics generated from plastic waste, resulting in impact on human health.
According to a research published in the US-based journal “Science Advances” in 2021, Thailand was ranked 10th in the world with 23 billion tonnes of marine waste.
Waste reduction as national agenda
Thailand has now included the waste issue as part of the national agenda by implementing short- and long-term waste management plans, creating a roadmap to deal with plastic waste from 2018 and 2030.
The country also has signed on for the Asean Regional Action Plan for Combating Marine Debris from 2021 to 2025, which aims to enhance marine resource management in a sustainable manner. The plan includes implementing strategies, reducing plastic imports, reusing waste and banning single-use plastics.
