Forests in Thailand

The other day in our Sustainable Development class we had a guest lecture from a professor from the Biology Department.  He specializes in forest restoration.  

Unfortunately due to agricultural expansion, teak deforestation, etc. the forests in Thailand aren't what they used to be.  Between 1945 and 1975 forest cover in Thailand declined from 61% to 34% of the country's land area. Over the next 11 years, Thailand lost close to 28% of all of its remaining forests.  

Basically this guy and his team re-forest deforested areas.  You might think this is as simple as just planting trees.  Yeah, sometimes they do plant trees.  But other times, depending on the state of the forest (5 different stages) they just have to make places for birds to post so the bird will land and drop seeds.   Seems kind of boring, but it was a really engaging lecture. 

Plus the next say we went on a field trip to Doi Suthep National Park - right next to the University.  We walked around the forests and he showed us some super interesting plants!  Nerd Alert.

Dr. Elliott talks about this type of palms that can re-grow easily after a forest fire because it's meristem is protected by a woody base in this deciduous forest!

Surprise!  A very rare orchid!  It doesn't have leaves because it gets its nutrients from a fungus underground, not photosynthesis. 

This epiphyte plant is cool.  It grows on tree branches so it can't get its nutrients from the soil.  The leaves are swollen and hallow and ants make their homes inside.  The matter from the ants nest provides nutrition, and the plant grows roots inside of its own leaf to feed itself.  Neato!

Roots inside of a leaf.  

Then we went to a cave on Doi Suthep.  People believe that caves are where spirits live.  The spirit of the whole city of Chiang Mai lives here at this one on the mountain.  Our professor told us a story of how back in the day Buddha asked some cannibal people/gods/monsters? to stop eating humans.  They asked 'can we eat babies?'  Buddha said no.  They asked 'can we eat water buffalo?'  Buddha was silent because he didn't want to say yes, and this was better than humans. Now every May, Thai people sacrifice a bull to please the gods or something. A real person representing a spirit will climb inside of the carcass and actually eat the raw meat of the animal.  This is not as popular of a festival as Songkran or Loi Krathong

More forest pictures:

Woody Crawlers

Strangling Fig tree - grows on top of a tree (or rock in this case) first.  Then puts all its energy into growing roots  down to the trunk of the host and out competes it for nutrients while getting the light from its canopy up high.  In this species, pollination is dependent on fig wasps.  And fid wasps depend on the figs to grow inside of.

These trees have grown all over Ankor Wat.  Stay tuned for this because I'm going to Cambodia next week!