Closing Thailand’s marine parks ‘won’t save coral’

The National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department will not close all the marine national parks along the Andaman Sea coast to save damaged coral reefs from bleaching.

“Closing the marine national parks will not help the coral reefs recover from bleaching,” the Department’s directorgeneral Sunant Arunnopparat said.

The Marine and Coastal Resources Department prepared a report on the coral reef bleaching in the marine national parks and asked the Department of National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation to close them to help their recovery.

Sunant said he had instructed officials to survey the bleached areas and report the findings to him. He will today call on all marine national park heads to meet with University academics and other experts to find out answers to the coral reef bleaching situation.

The Nation