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‘Climate K.O.’: Thailand’s gentle dugongs die in Andaman Sea as global warming takes toll
- Dugongs in Koh Libong have been forced to find new feeding grounds where they are vulnerable to threats such as fishing gear and propellers
- Measures to protect the dugong population could end up affecting low-season tourist businesses around Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi
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According to island lore, when the dugong thrives, so do the people of Koh Libong.
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But this year, for the first time ever, the dugong – a shy, benign snub-nosed marine mammal and cousin of the manatee – has vanished from the waters around the Andaman Sea island.
In its absence, a strange sadness has settled over the Muslim island off the Trang coast in southern Thailand, says conservationist Ismaann Bensaard.
“We believe that the dugongs represent abundance,” Ismaann, also the president of the Koh Libong tourism cooperative, told This Week in Asia.
“But we also believe that the day they disappear, so will the way of life of the Libong islanders. Then, our legends are all we will have left.”
Thailand’s dugong population is being shredded by the climate crisis, marine scientists say, as warming seas expose the seagrass fields they munch on to the withering sun of Trang province.
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