Youthful enthusiasm to save Thailand’s hornbills

Published in 2008

In southern Thailand, near the border with Malaysia, microbiologist Pilai Poonswad is pushing ahead with her wide-ranging campaign to protect the spectacular hornbills whose survival has been endangered by poaching and logging. In the 12 months after Professor Poonswad won her Rolex Award in October 2006, violence by separatists in the region continued, but this has not hampered her efforts to help hornbills. Providing environmental education to children, on whom the future of these charismatic birds depends, is one of the keys to the project’s success. “We held camps for schoolchildren in November 2007, with about 200 youngsters attending a total of six camps,” Poonswad says. “On top of that, a small group of about 15 children were trained throughout the year, learning about hornbills and plants, and participating in research as well. They also learn about how hornbills are depicted in Thai art.”

Dr Poonswad also reports that one person stood out as a potential future guardian of hornbills, 25-year-old Vichai Napua: “When he was only a little boy, he visited my project during his school vacation for several years to learn about hornbills, and later he became a children’s leader of great ability in his home town in Chaiyaphum Province [in north-east Thailand]. I am very proud of him.”

She hopes that exchanges in hornbill and environmental education will be possible this year between children in Chaiyaphum Province and the south. The exchanges would be particularly interesting for all the children involved because the southern region is largely Muslim while the north-east of Thailand is Buddhist.

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