Fear Of The Sea

A fisherman his whole life, Somkiat Baanperm never wants to see the sea again.

"I'm afraid to be a fisherman again. I don't dare go near the water," says Baanperm, who lost his mother and several relatives when the tsunami killed about 3,000 villagers from Baan Nam Khem, which ironically means “salt water village.” "I'm afraid of ghosts in the sea."

And corpses too. He says fishermen from neighboring Ranong province, whose boats survived the waves that wrecked most of Phang-Nga's fleet, are finding five to 10 bodies a day in their nets. "When that happens, they release the bodies, and all the fish in their nets too, because they're spoiled."

Government officials maintain the fish are safe to eat, and die-hard tourists haven't reported swimming with bodies.

But a newfound fear of the sea among many fishermen here is jeopardizing the future of many around the Indian Ocean, which provides a large share of the world's supply of fish. With most aid focused on preventing disease and famine, some worry that fishing will be overlooked.

"We see the devastation of the tourism industry. What we're not seeing is the devastation of the fishing industry," said Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, the first Western leader to visit the tsunami region, after touring Phuket last Sunday. "The reason we're not seeing it is because 4,500 boats have disappeared. How many countless fishermen and families have disappeared? These are the issues that we've got to deal with. It's a fundamental foundation of the economy here."

Thailand's Food and Drug Administration has banned fishing in shallow waters along the affected coast. Amid unfounded rumours that fish feed on corpses, many are avoiding eating fish. Even fresh markets further south in Krabi province sell no seafood.

Thailand's agriculture minister, Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, estimates the fishing industry suffered two billion baht in damages, about $50 million. He said the tsunami wrecked about 4,000 boats and 10,000 fish breeders at sea.

"Fishing has stopped," says Baanperm, a man with coarse hands and leathery skin. "There won't be fishing for several months."

With no home, boat, savings or job, he says he hopes to change careers and start a new life on higher ground. "Living by the hills is easier. We don't have to worry about the sea ever again. I want to be a paw khaa in the Takua Pa market. I'll sell anything, even seafood. Most fishermen want to change, and do this."

But who will buy? Much of Thailand's vibrant economy was geared toward serving 12 million foreign tourists a year. But few tourists, or resort owners and investors, are likely to return to the Khao Lak killing fields, where thousands died in resorts, mom-and-pop bungalows, dive shops and internet cafes hit by 45-foot waves along a narrow 15-mile stretch of shore.

The attack of the black sea also wiped out shrimp farms along the coast. In Tap-Tawan village in Khao Lak, some of the 100 workers at a shrimp farm owned by Charoen Pokpand, one of Asia's largest companies, said they expected to lose their jobs, which pay about $3 a day. "We're not sure about our future," said shrimp worker Titipaan Plaa-Muansin, 24, as he stood looking at destroyed reefs exposed like tombstones on the Khao Lak shore. "First we have to clean up the site. After that, we'll probably have no work."

Fishermen who do choose to return to sea can apply for compensation of 70,000 baht, about $1,700, for smaller boats.

But if they can't fish, the local work force has few alternatives. Tourism, which grew tenfold in a decade, grafted gated resorts, golf courses, and elephant corals onto lands that had been rubber fields, fruit orchards, and tin mines. From the late 1980s onward, villagers went into debt in order to corral the foreigners who appeared like schools of fish every winter in search of the tropical sun. "We thought those farang (foreigners) were nice," says Baanperm. "They were rich and we were poor. They helped us."