Nanticha (Lynn) Ocharoenchai

With more than 500 species across 91 countries around the world, primates are one of the most species-rich groups of mammals in the world. Of these, about 125 species are present in 22 Asian countries, with 45 species in the Greater Mekong Region alone, each with their own distinctive behaviours and ecologies.
To help us understand more about the lives of these fascinating creatures, as well as the similarities and differences between them and us humans, science has branched out into the fiel...

I remember seeing their dried skins, laid out like souvenirs - I’d seen tusks before, but never this. I remember what a shock it gave me, and I knew we had to do more to protect them.
Since 2016, my team and I have been working to protect elephants from the illegal wildlife trade in Myanmar. Today, it’s not only their tusks that are wanted for ivory decorations－their skins are used to make topical creams, their tail hairs put into lucky charms and their teeth ground to make acne powders. It’s...

Learning activism through stories told from coal-affected communities in northern Thailand
It’s been almost three years since Pornchita Fahpathanpai first saw the sign, which announced that her village, Kabue Din – a lush, pristine indigenous Karen village tucked away in the sleepy mountains of Omkoi District, Chiang Mai Province – was soon due to become a coal mine. Since then, life has been utterly different.
Community in Omkoi. Photo credit: Chanklang Kanthong, Greenpeace
Pornchita used to...

When he was young, Singkharn Ruenhom used to go fishing with his father along the Yuam River on Thailand’s northwestern border with Myanmar. Years later, he fished on the river with his own sons. Now he worries his grandchildren might not get to do the same.

Like many in communities across Mae Hong Son, Tak and Chiang Mai provinces, Ruenhom is concerned about his home and heritage. In September 2021, a project was approved that will divert an average of 1,795 cubic metres of water annually to...

This story is part of the VICE Creators Summit, a series of panels and workshops to co-create futures for a habitable planet. Find out more here.

It’s impossible to ignore that our streets, stores, and homes are filled with stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. And yet we take many of them for granted. In fact, we’d need an equivalent of 1.6 Earths to have enough natural resources to keep consuming at our current rate. And if this linear economy continues, it could possibly lead to a 3- to 6-degree ...

Just a few kilometres off the shores of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands —located in India’s Bay of Bengal— fishermen sometimes don’t find any fish… just plastic. The same plastic bottles and bags are also littered across the islands’ beaches.

But this plastic garbage is not all from locals: it travels far from countries around the Bengal Bay, such as Myanmar, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

As plastic pollution shifts from different countries, governments in the area a...

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Where northeast Thailand meets Central Laos, a river traverses the landscape, forming the borders of each country. Despite creating a physical barrier between the two nations, the waters of the Mekong have long united the people of each side, serving as a source of food, transport and income for more than 60 million people in the region.

On one side, in Had Hae village of Nakhon Phanom province, three fishermen sit beneath a small wooden gazebo, looking over the water to their neighbours.

“Wh...

Who owns the water? Who owns the land? Who gets to use them, and who’s to care for them?

Whether lakes and rivers, swamps and marshes, wet grasslands and peatlands, deltas and tidal flats, mangroves and coastal areas, fish ponds and rice paddies, you name it — wetlands are indispensable to our survival. Whether it’s in providing the water we drink, the food we eat or the houses we build, they provide essential ecosystem services which not only supply us with resources but also regulate our cl...

Driving through a bumpy dirt road into a seemingly endless field, we finally arrive at a small wooden house where two men are sat waiting for us out front. Right away, they enthusiastically began to share their experience in shifting to organic fertiliser.

The shift was triggered in 2005 when the price of chemical fertilisers rose. That year, farmers in Baan Sam Phong community in Nakhon Phanom, a province near the Mekong River in Northeastern Thailand, began to face financial challenges.

Twe...

In one hand, a man is holding on to his wife, in the other, he is grasping his baby tightly. As the strong torrents of flood water surge through his village and crash into his family, he has to make a choice — who does he let go of?

Only the man survived. Naw Eh Moo Paw, a director of a local civil society organization and a former disaster relief volunteer describes this scene from a community hit by Cyclone Nagis which swept through Myanmar in 2008

“The traumatised father refused all humani...

What’s in an icon? As part of Thailand NOW’s mission to share authentic insights into all things Thai, we’re spotlighting iconic individuals who have not only excelled in their respective areas, but influenced the complex tapestry of Thailand as it exists today and, in doing so, inspire us to be a part of the fabric of Thai society.

In this Icon NOW interview, Lee Ayu Chuepa talks about the humble motivations of award-winning Akha Ama coffee, pursuing formal education as a member of the Akha ...

They used to call him all sorts of names. Not just the neighbourhood kids or the teachers at school, but even his own parents back at home, they had all spurned him, making him feel less human with each word they said.

“I remember being asked why I couldn’t have been born normal like other people,” says Patchara Kumchumnan. “They said to my face that being born gay was a waste of life.”

It’s taken him a few years and some hundred kilometres to escape the prejudice and hatred in his hometown. ...

Creating urban spaces that allow for the free flow and penetration of water and wind is essential to the survival of water-based cities like Bangkok. “Landscape porosity” can help us better understand and defend these urban ecosystems in times of climate change, says Kotchakorn Voraakhom.

By 2050, rising sea levels could affect triple the amount of people previously predicted, threatening to all but erase some of the world’s great coastal cities including Bangkok. Southeast Asia, the region w...