In Rayong Bay, a few hours east of Bangkok, January is normally the season for cuttlefish and crabs. But this year the catch was different. Instead of fresh seafood, the fishermen returned to shore with ruined fishing gear. Everything was covered in black goo after a pipeline owned by Star Petroleum Refining Company (SPRC) and situated 20 kilometres off the coast leaked approximately 47,000 litres of crude oil into the Gulf of Thailand on 25 January.
Soon the eastern shore was swarming with hundreds of government workers in white jumpsuits cleaning up the oil washed ashore ; while out at sea, marine ships sprayed dispersant chemicals into the ocean to push the oil down to the seafloor. The accident kept tourists away from once-busy beaches that had already suffered under the impact of Covid.
Tiraj Bunyong, passe à côté de la centrale à charbon BLCP, sur le site industriel de Map Ta Phut, en se rendant à une manifestation organisée en mer par les pêcheurs, le 28 février 2022. Tiraj sort en mer tous les jours, mais il ne pêche presque jamais de poisson.
The exact size of the spill has been hard to establish. First it was reported that 400,000 litres of oil had leaked, but the number was revised several times, with the final figure eight times lower than the first one. This raised suspicion among locals, and environmental activists pointed out that the number did not seem to align with the amount of dispersant used.
Vue de la zone industrielle de Map Ta Phut, dans la province de Rayong, depuis la mer. Il s’agit de la plus grande zone industrielle de Thaïlande, sur laquelle se trouve l’industrie pétrochimique du pays.
The January spill was the second oil spill to take place in Rayong Bay. Ten days after this first 2013 spill, PTT Global Chemical – the oil company responsible – and government officials announced the oil had successfully been cleaned up. At first, the water quality seemed back to normal, but a few months later monsoon waves started washing tarballs onto the beaches. This continued for years.
After this first spill, fishermen also kept finding small cuttlefish bones, which indicated that the hatchlings had died abnormally early. Catches grew smaller and smaller, and fishermen sometimes caught deformed fish with white-spotted, blind eyes. The changes in the aquatic environment made veteran fisher Lamom Bunyong and other local fishermen suspect that something was not right.
Le 28 février, une centaine de bateaux de pêche ont participé à une manifestation contre l’extension de la zone industrielle de Map Ta Phut. Progressant en tenaille, autant de pêcheurs ont manifesté sur terre, devant l’entrée de la zone industrielle. Après avoir connu deux marées noires, les pêcheurs craignent que le projet d’extension de la zone ne fasse qu’aggraver leur situation.
This morning, Tiraj Bunyong, Lamom’s son, steers his family’s fishing boat to join a protest at sea. He slows down the engine and turns the boat to face the shoreline, so that it shows the protest banners strung across the boat. Somewhere on land, Tiraj’s father is leading protesters to the gates fencing off the oil company that caused the recent oil spill.
The Bunyong family lives in Rayong’s Pak Nam subdistrict, only a few footsteps away from the beach and 15 kilometres from the Map Ta Phut Industrial Port, the biggest petrochemical industrial zone in Thailand. It is one of many industrial zones in this area known as the Eastern Economic Corridor, a special economic zone that allows extensive industrial development throughout Thailand’s eastern seaboard.
Plusieurs centaines de pêcheurs se sont déplacés en convoi le 28 février 2022 pour manifester devant l’entreprise de raffinage de pétrole Star Petroleum Refining Company (SPRC), détenue majoritairement par Chevron.
Only a few hours’ drive east of Bangkok, Rayong is known for its seafood and tourism. But since the early 1980s, an increasing number of industrial factories have been built along its coast. This has created pollution problems that have affected both farmers on land and fishermen at the sea.
Lamom Bunyong (au centre, avec la chemise à carreaux) essaie d’apaiser les pêcheurs en colère, lors d’une manifestation organisée en février 2022 devant SPRC, la compagnie pétrolière responsable de la marée noire de 2022.
In 2009, the National Environment Board declared Rayong’s Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate a ‘pollution-controlled zone’ as a result of a 2009 legal challenge filed by Rayong locals over the Thai government’s issuance of permits to projects seen to be harmful to people and the environment without prior public hearings. This is required under the country’s constitution. The designation of the industrial park as a pollution-controlled zone was supposed to minimise the health impacts of industrial activities in the area. But so far, no measures have been implemented and there have been rumours that the pollution-controlled zone will be abolished.
Vente de calamars à la criée au port de Pak Nam. Les calamars seront déshydratés et sont un mets prisé par la population locale. Cependant, la vente sera moins rémunératrice pour les pêcheurs qu’elle ne l’était. En effet, la crainte de manger des fruits de mer potentiellement contaminés préoccupe de nombreux consommateurs, entraînant la baisse de leur prix.
Since the first spill in 2013, industry and government representatives have reassured local fishermen that their livelihoods were safe, but locals could see with their own eyes that something was off.
Wanting to better understand the changes to the environment, a few locals started to collect video and photo evidence of irregular marine life and oil sightings. They gathered the footage in a group chat and sent it to a legal aid group in Bangkok in the hopes that it might one day serve as evidence in a court case.
In 2014, hundreds of local fishermen eventually filed a lawsuit against PTT Global Chemical and the Thai government over what they alleged was an improper and incomplete cleanup of the spill. It is the first legal case over an oil spill in Thailand and it is likely to set a precedent according to local environmental lawyers. The case is currently pending before the country’s Supreme Court.
Les bateaux de pêche rentrent au port de Pak Nam après dix jours en mer. Ils doivent aller plus loin et partir plus longtemps pour attraper suffisamment de poisson et rentabiliser leur sortie en mer.
“We have eyes all around,” says Lamom Bunyong, as he teaches a friend how to use a smartphone to send images of a thin film of oil floating on the sea surface. “We used to hold the actual fishing nets and now we are holding cameras.”
Album photo de Lamom Bunyong contenant les photographies prises par les pêcheurs suite à la marée noire de 2013. Les analyses de laboratoire effectuées sur des échantillons de sang de poisson ont révélé la présence d’hydrocarbures polyaromatiques, une composante qui peut s’accumuler dans les tissus des animaux s et provoquer des mutations de l’ADN.
Not only in Rayong but all across Thailand, local communities have turned to citizen science as a tool to understand and document the impact of development projects and pollution disasters in their hometowns.
Lamom Bunyong a placé dans des sachets de congélation des boulettes de pétrole qu’il a ramassées sur la plage de Pak Nam en 2013. Il les a amenés dans des tribunaux pour donner des preuves physiques des fuites d’hydrocarbures. Les marées noires de 2013 et de 2022 présentent certains points communs, tels que l’incertitude relative à la quantité de pétrole déversé en mer, de même que le refus des autorités d’en reconnaître les effets persistants sur le monde marin.
“First I didn’t care about the spill, but later on I realised that I’m also affected,” Nawarat Thoopbusha, a fishing gear shop owner says, pointing out that the oil spill has impacted many sectors in the province. “It affects the fishermen, the seafood restaurants and processors, the hotel owners and so on. Not to mention consumers, as seafood prices are rising so much because the fishing boats have to travel further,” she tells Equal Times.
Une résidente répare un filet de pêche sur une plage proche du site de la marée noire de 2022. Les personnes les plus touchées par la pollution des zones industrielles environnantes sont les petits pêcheurs locaux qui travaillent dans les eaux proches des côtes dans des embarcations plus modestes.
After the January 2022 oil spill, SPRC set up a complaint centre at a local hotel where affected locals could register for compensation. A month later, the company closed the registration process, having received 13,000 complaints from the local community. Locals continue to organise protests, hold public panels and gather evidence with the hopes of filing a lawsuit for compensation and restoration of the environment.
“It started with only a few community leaders, but now more people are seeing that the evidence can help them claim their rights,” says Weerawat Ob-o, a lawyer with the Community Resources Centre, a legal aid group that has been working with the Rayong fishermen since the first spill back in 2013. “Some believe the impact [of the oil spill] is gone. But with the evidence people are collecting, they are becoming aware that the problem isn’t over.”
