Thailand towards sustainable management of marine and coastal habitats

To date, deep concerns have been placed upon the current world-wide degradation of oceans and seas, in particular coastal areas, from threats generated by both human activities and natural causes. Without attempts and appropriate means and measures to reverse the trend, the vital roles, particularly ecosystem goods and services provided by oceans and seas will be abrupt or irreversibly lost and lead to unpleasant consequences in respect of socio-economic deliverables and human livelihoods. Universal call upon concert actions regarding ocean-related sustainable development have been requested to be applied and implemented at all levels form local and national to regional and global scales. In this context, Thailand recognizes the importance of such concert actions and emphasizes its commitment to take further necessary steps to strengthen implementation of the action plan on area-based management and conservation measures.

Thailand has adopted the concept of ecosystem-based approach for sustainable use and management of marine and coastal resources. A number of measures and operational programs have been implemented in order to eliminate threats, reduce anthropogenic impacts as well as strengthen ecological resilience of marine and coastal ecosystems. The programs or activities being defined in the 5-year plan (2016-2020) are as follows:
Declaration of more conserved and reserved marine and coastal areas.
Promotion of management effectiveness for the existing protected areas, which also includes strengthening strict law enforcement, monitoring and surveillance of illegal practices.
Restoration of degraded marine and coastal habitats.
Establishment and improvement of fishing measures to be in line with responsible fishery.
Promotion of environmental- and ecological-friendly maritime activities.
Application of marine spatial planning as an integral part of marine and coastal zone management.
Stakeholder participation and partnerships are considered as a key to success and to be assigned for involvement, as appropriate, in the course of action for each implementing program.

At present, the proportion of Thailands Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) managed using ecosystem-based approaches has reached 15.7 % (50,700 sq.km.). Concerning marine protected areas (MPAs), Thailand has adopted the target of 10% of coastal and marine areas to be protected. At present, the total coastal and marine protected area is about 18,000 sq.km., accounting for 5.6% of Thai waters, encompassing 22 national marine parks, 6 coastal non-hunting areas, 160 sites of reserved mangrove forests, 56 marine fishery sanctuaries, and 6 environmental protection areas. In order to attain 4.4% (14,300 sq.km.) more of MPAs, a number of potential areas/sites have been targeted for legal proclamation in the coming years. The proposed areas include 4 national marine parks (ca. 450 sq.km.), 3 environmental protection areas (570 sq.km.), and many marine and coastal protection areas, i.e. 25 island-groups (6,600 sq.km.) and one large offshore shelf-break font zone (6,700 sq.km.).