Saffron-robed Buddhist monks led a six-day peace march along the banks of the Kok River on June 6 – U.N. World Environment Day. Their goal was to draw attention to the worsening toxic rivers crisis in northern Thailand.
Pianporn (Pai) Deetes, the director of Rivers and Rights, a Thailand-based foundation dedicated to water security and ecological issues in the Mekong basin, blogged about the march.
“Along the Kok, Sai, Ruak, Mekong, Salween, and Kraburi rivers, communities depend on these waterways for drinking water, fisheries, agriculture, transportation, and cultural identity,” she wrote. “Rivers are not simply part of the landscape here. They are the foundation of life.”
And that “foundation of life” is being poisoned. The plethora of unregulated rare earth and gold mining in Myanmar’s Shan State has caused massive contamination along the transboundary rivers flowing into northern Thailand and thence into the mainstream Mekong River.
Thai Buddhist monks based at Thaton monastery on the contaminated Kok River arrive to a rally after the 68-kilometer Peace March from Thaton to Chiang Rai. Photo by Tom Fawthrop.
