Category Archives: Environment

Chiang Mai tourist death hotel mystery remains – governor slams foreign media report

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Chiang Mai Provincial Governor; Mom Luang Panadda Diskul slammed foreign media reports

This story was updated at 10:25am May 15, 2011. Additional/ edited text in green type. Mystery still surrounds the deaths of six foreign tourists and a Thai national tourist guide who stayed at The Downtown Inn in Chiang Mai earlier this year, with Provincial Governor ML Panadda Disakul criticising foreign media for exaggerating news that the Dow Chemical Co. chlorpyrifos was found in the room of dead New Zealand woman Sarah Carter. Mr. Panadda also dismissed claims made by a New Zealand-based United Nations scientist, who told New Zealand’s 60 Minutes program last Sunday that in his opinion Ms. Carter had been “killed by an overzealous [insecticide] sprayer”, saying there is no medical proof. On the 60 Minutes report Dr. … Continue reading →

Dow chemical’s chlorpyrifos pesticide found in Chiang Mai tourist death hotel

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Chlorpyrifos Insecticide produced by S.D. Agro Chemicals of India.

An investigation conducted by New Zealand’s 60 Minutes current affairs program titled To Die For has found high levels of the pesticide chlorpyrifos in The Downtown Inn, the Chiang Mai hotel linked to the deaths of at least seven tourists earlier this year (see: Lost smiles in LOS as Thailand travel tragedies website goes live). 60 Minutes reporter Sarah Hall traveled to Chiang Mai and stayed at The Downtown Inn in the Night Bazaar section of the city and took swab samples from the hotel back to New Zealand for analysis, with further tests conducted in Italy. First produced in 1965 by Dow Chemical Company, chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate, is a popular ingredient in flea collars and shampoo for dogs, and … Continue reading →

Thai researcher debunks dengue fever myth – warnings for 2011 wet season

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A female Anopheles albimanus mosquito feeding on a human host.

A researcher at Thailand’s Department of Medical Sciences’ National Institute of Health (NIH) has found that a single mosquito can carry two different strains of the dengue fever virus, with larvae inheriting the disease from their mothers. The finding coincides with a warning by the NIH that it expects there to be a serious dengue fever outbreak across the country this year, due to the the recent extreme changes in the weather, and figures from Thailand’s Public Health Ministry (PHM) that in 2010 24,816 cases of malaria were reported nation-wide. NIH researcher Usavadee Thavara studied 25 Thailand provinces with reported dengue fever outbreaks between 2006 and 2010 and found that the females of two species of mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti and … Continue reading →

Lombok vet takes conservation lead

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Animal conservation is not something usually associated with Asian countries. However the forward looking views of a Lombok veterinarian almost five years ago has seen the turtle population around the northwest gilis (island in Bhasa Indonesia) of Air, Meno and Trawangan increase to the levels they are now. Over the years Dr Gde Sudiana, head of the department of Animal Services for West Lombok, estimates he has helped in the incubation and release of more than 3,000 turtles. According to Dr Gde, in 1995 there was very few turtles in the waters around the three gili’s and after reading reports on the plight of the turtles he and an English biologist friend started a small-scale breeding program. “We bought 50 … Continue reading →

Trawangan dive school coral regrowth project encouraging

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Every year divers from all round the world head to Indonesia to explore the pristine waters surrounding the 16,000 islands forming the Indonesian archipelago. While the island resort of Bali plays host to many of these tourists, along with Sumatra and Sumbawa, the three islands off the North-West tip of Lombok, Gili Air, Meno and Trawangan, have in the past enjoyed a particularly good reputation. Known world-wide for exceptionally clear water and an area where visitors can see more varieties of fish, including giant manta rays, than any other location in the world, the three Gili’s host thousands of divers a year. While fish species still abound in the area, the effects of el Nino in 2000, as well as … Continue reading →