World Wetlands Day: A Celebration of Local Knowledge

Vanessa Moll and Stephanie Teatro
Thailand
An old woman surrounded by friends and family sits with her legs slightly apart. Her left arm is hidden inside a light grey, urn-shaped piece of pottery, which she holds between her legs. With her right hand, she uses a long, thin wooden paddle to shape the clay.

On-looking students watch and take notes. They are taking in ancient, local knowledge. For the clay that the woman is shaping is the same type that villagers have gathered for generations from the wetlands surrounding the Mun River.

The students came, “and they received all the local knowledge, like pottery, which is barely seen nowadays,” said Mr. Pradit Norasarn. Mr. Pradit was one of many villagers that came to the Rasi Salai District Office on February 5th for Rasi Salai’s first ever World Wetlands Day celebration.

Globally, World Wetlands Day is celebrated annually to commemorate the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands signed in 1971 in Ramsar, Iran. This convention provides a “framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.”

At Rasi Salai villagers from Sisaket, Surin, and Ubon Ratchatani provinces joined school children, various NGOs, representatives from community organizations, and local and provincial government officials in order to discuss and celebrate the past, present, and future of the Mun River and its surrounding wetlands.

Villagers living off the Mun River have struggled to hold onto their livelihoods and culture in the face of large-scale development projects, which have often led to drastic changes in the river’s watershed.

“I think this is the first step of the work between the state, the villagers, school, and NGOs to raise awareness of the wetland along the Mun River. Every party got to come and exchange their ideas; children got a chance to come and study outside of class, and adults got to see the activities done by children,” said Sodsai Sangsok from the Network of the Mun River Community.

Villagers in Rasi Salai set up photo galleries with pictures of themselves smiling and holding fish that went from above their waists down to their feet. Other photos caught fishermen in action, casting reed nets twice the length of most human beings. At booths lining the lot outside the District Office, villagers sold and gave away herbal medicines and teas, rice and potatoes, and other vegetables they had gathered in the wetlands; one group taught traditional methods of boiling salt.

In the afternoon, led by students from Rasi Salai Elementary School tooting horns and tapping drums, villagers marched through the city streets, holding banners declaring the crucial role of the wetlands. “Wetland, womb of the Mun River, kidney of the land,” they said.

Organizers of the festival originally anticipated 100-200 people to attend the day’s activities, but Mr. Pradit Kosol, a representative of the Assembly of the Poor in Rasi Salai, smiled proudly and reported that 600-700 people had actually come. “I’m very happy; people are interested in the way of life [in the wetlands],” said Mr. Pradit, “We should continue this every year.”