24 minute read
Bangkok is Sinking: But so are other Southeast Asian megacities
Karin Wenger
Many of Bangkok’s remaining waterways are little more than open sewers and garbage dumps. Urban planners recommend that these be rehabilitated and cleared if the sinking of Bangkok is to be halted. (Photo: George Flood-Hunt)
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Jakarta, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). All three Southeast Asian coastal cities may now be grappling with coronavirus, but they also have something else in common: they are being threatened by sea water, primarily because of climate change. According to recent studies, HCMC, formerly Saigon, could slip under water by 2050 with millions of people in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, the country’s main rice-growing region, forced to flee. With regard to Jakarta, the Indonesian government has already proposed to move the capital to a new location in Borneo. As for Bangkok, it risks being inundated within 15-20 years unless the government starts taking more appropriate action. Swiss National Public Radio correspondent Karin Wenger has been exploring how the Thai capital, a megacity now approaching 10 million, and its nearby coastal areas are being currently affected.
SOMNEUK ATIPANYO, A BUDDHIST ABBOT, stands in front of his temple south of Bangkok looking out to sea. Here, he says, pointing to the waves lapping at the shoreline, 20 years ago there was an enclosed pond in which villagers of Khun Samut Chin cultivated shrimp. In those days, the sea was not even close. “But then wind and waves became stronger,” he says. “The pond was flooded and many villagers had to move elsewhere.” Lying barely a few kilometres south of Bangkok, the village can now only be reached by boat. As for the temple, it has waves at its base and is only protected from being washed away by a concrete wall. For many coastal farmers and fishermen, this is seriously bad news. Part of a multi-billion dollar industry representing the world’s largest shrimp exporting country, shrimp farms such as the one at Khun Samut Chin were established along Thailand’s coastal areas, eliminating protective mangrove forests in the process. This has enabled the sea to encroach steadily inland. Footbridges and paths on piled-up earth walls lead from the temple to the village huts, where women work, shucking oysters for sale in the markets. Village head Visanu Khengsamut points to various aerial photographs that he has hung on the wall. They show how the village has changed over the past five decades. “In the last years, the winds and the waves have caused very bad erosion,” he explains. “The sea has swallowed up huge parts of the village.” At one point, he adds, the sea was more than a kilometre away; it is now at his front door. Originally, the village consisted of one thousand inhabitants, but with increasing amounts of land, plus their homes, lost to the sea, barely 200 remain.
CLIMATE CHANGE: THE REGION’S GREATEST RISK
As with many other parts of Southeast Asia, climate change and its consequences are already well-established as a reality for both Thailand’s southern coastal areas and Bangkok itself. According to Loretta Hieber-Girardet, regional director of the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) unit for Asia-Pacific, climate change has emerged as the region’s greatest risk. “There is either too little water, which leads to droughts or shortages affecting agricultural production,” she maintains. “Or there is too much, which means floods, landslides and other forms of disaster.” According to a September, 2019, report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with input by over 130 scientists worldwide, rising sea levels in Southeast Asia are being driven by greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, heavy rainfall, warming oceans and the accelerated melting of ice in the polar regions. The report also asserts that coastlines are far more vulnerable to rising sea levels than satellite data initially appeared to indicate. Previous predictions, it maintains, underestimated land loss and population displacement by about one-third. While some scientists argue that such predictions are “too worst-case scenario”, more recent reports appear to agree. The end result is that today more and more people are fleeing natural disasters than conflicts, which, until recently were considered to be the principal source of crises prompting people to leave. Now climate refugee and migrants represent a new phenomenon. According to both the IPCC and other studies, an estimated 237 million people in Asia now live in areas that can be expected to be flooded under sea water in the coming decades. As HieberGirardet argues, “governments urgently need to wake up to these threats by recognizing new realities and investing in preventative measures.”
Somneuk Atipanyo, a Buddhist abbot: The waves have become higher and the winds stronger. Only a wall now protects his temple. (Photo: Karin Wenger)
A closer look at Bangkok itself underlines such points. Originally built on swampy land and layers of soft clay, this megacity roughly the size of New York is connected to the sea by the Chao Phraya River. In recent years, it has been sinking at the rate of two centimetres annually. Some scientists now believe that the rate has increased even to three centimetres. With its many canals, it was once considered the Venice of the East. But today, most of these canals have been covered over with roads and now form the principal basis of the city’s sewage system. Prof. Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a Thai marine biologist with the Faculty of Fish Sciences and an advisor to the government on climate issues, stands at a main downtown traffic intersection in the centre of Bangkok. Gesturing to the street, he notes that the government is currently seeking to expand its sewage network, including the installation of pumps. It is promising to solve the flood problem, he explains, “but there is still regular major flooding.” Other scientists, too, are critical of the government’s failure over the years to recognize that the city is sinking. Regardless of such measures, the level of Bangkok, which now reportedly stands at barely 1.5 metres above sea level, continues to drop. During the monsoon season, which runs from May to October with torrential downpours, the water is simply not draining. Too much
But the real problem, many point out, lies with the current construction boom for housing, offices and commercial zones, such as huge shopping centres. Any available green spaces, or potential open areas such as abandoned go-downs, railway sidings or even former farms, are fast disappearing. Many back zones in between the main thoroughfares remain relatively green with residential housing and gardens, but even these are being rapidly consumed by new development.
A NEED FOR NEW VISION AND IDEAS
The villagers of Khun Samut Chin have built bamboo barriers to help stave off the waters, giving them time to plant protective mangroves forests. (Photo: Karin Wenger) One proposal is to uncover the klongs, or of the city surface has been tarmacked over or covered with concrete, primarily because of massive urbanization. And with the rising sea, the problem becomes steadily worse. According to the Thai Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), another problem – similar to other megacities across the globe – is the tapping of groundwater by both industry and residents. While officially banned, the practice reportedly continues. canals, but not use them as open sewers. Some canal rehabilitation is indeed happening, but scientists maintain that it must be done on a far more ambitious basis. This includes perhaps using open waterways for public transportation but also recreational purposes as a means of cutting back on road traffic, which has reached horrendous levels. While the overall situation remains bleak, there are some positive signs. In Khun Samut Chin, where the sea has doggedly eroded the land, its inhabitants have sought solutions. According to Visanu
JAKARTA: A LOST CAUSE RESULTING IN THE CAPITAL’S MOVE TO A NEW LOCATION
Khengsamut, they have sought to construct a bulwark against the rising waters. Standing on an earthen wall, the village chief points to rows of bamboo fencing stretching Even worse than Bangkok, Jakarta has been sinking so badly that it now ranks as one of the fastest subsiding cities in the world. Last summer Indonesian president Joko Widodo said that the capital would be moved to Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. With some parts of the city sinking at the rate of 10-20 centimetres a year, the World Bank recently estimated that 40 per cent of Jakarta has dropped below sea level, much of it – like Bangkok – caused by the pumping of ground water, thus preventing water from draining properly into the sea. The solutions are evident. For Bangkok, there needs to be a complete change in the manner with which the city is dealing with urbanization. The city, argues Prof Thamrongnawasawat, urgently needs more green over kilometres. The outside rows serve as dams, he explains, which can stave off the water. The land behind has now formed into a wide, open swamp, where they are now planting mangroves. This, he explains, helps prevent further erosion by retaining land sediment. “It takes barely four years to grow an entire mangrove forest which will protect the village as long as no major storms occur,” maintains the chief. Even the government has noticed these improvements, he points out. It has now provided them with discarded electricity poles, which are more stable than the bamboo walls and should last longer. As urban planners are realizing, unless the sea is halted on the outskirts, the next to be flooded will be Bangkok itself. spaces and more visionary town planning. Furthermore, mangrove forests need to be re-planted, plus barriers and KARIN WENGER , is the Southeast Asia correspondent for German-language Swiss National Public Radio (SRF) based in Bangkok. dykes installed in coastal areas. Only in this manner can This article is based on a shorter broadcast produced earlier this the water be held back. year.
Rural Rock Queen, Oasis and the Ridge Farm Story The Editors
Freddy Mercury statue in Montreux, Switzerland (Photo: Swiss-Image / Markus Buehler-Rasom)
With its stunning view of the Alps, the Lake Geneva town of Montreux claimed Zanzibar-born Freddie Mercury as its own ever since the British rock musician made it his second home in the late 1970s. Based out of ‘Duck House’, a shoreside villa, Mercury ran his own studio where the rock band Queen recorded their last album “Made in Heaven”. Mercury managed to do the vocals shortly before his death in 1991. Five years later, Montreux, which hosts the annual international Jazz Festival, dedicated a statue in his memory. For Mercury, Montreux was always an inspiring place. But there was another location which also played a crucial role: Ridge Farm, a rustic studio retreat in the English countryside. Prior to the Coronavirus lockdowns, Global Geneva editor Edward Girardet visited this former rock ‘n roll gathering place to speak with its two original founders, the Andrews brothers.
Freddy Mercury having a 'cuppa' at Ridge Farm (Photo: Ridge Farm Archive)
WHEN SOME 30 POLICE OFFICERS raided both Ridge Farm, one of England’s earliest rural rock recording studios, and the nearby Plough Pub, at 6.00 am in spring, 1982, they were hoping to bust what they thought was an international drug ring. The police had been doing clandestine surveillance of both establishments located just outside the small West Sussex village of Rusper. For days, too, undercover drug squad officers drank at the pub to observe its comings and goings. But all they could find were traces of marijuana in an ashtray of the pub’s private quarters. At the farm some two kilometers away, they only secured small amounts of hash. Their meagre haul was not exactly what the police had expected, particularly given that certain well-heeled residents in this affluent part of England’s Stockbroker Belt with its gardened manors, manicured cottages and horse stables considered Ridge Farm to be a rock ‘n roll “den of iniquity’. After all, what else would these longhaired rock musicians from leading bands such as Queen, Bad Company, Roxy Music and Black Sabbath be doing in the depths of rural Albion? The Plough was particularly well-known. Most evenings it would attract crowds with the knowledge that pop stars regularly turned up from Ridge Farm to drink, relax and show off. Ozzy Ozbourne, who was then with
his newly-formed band Blizzard of Oz, was renowned for his heavy drinking, but also for his magnanimousness by standing drinks for anyone who happened to be there. “He was very popular and liked to stick his whole face into a glass of beer. People found that very funny, but not too happy when he pissed outside. A very nice guy though,” recalls Billy Andrews, who, together with his brother Frank, had set up Ridge Farm as a creative retreat for rock groups.
THE LOCAL ESTABLISHMENT WAS NEVER TOO KEEN
“There was a real atmosphere of freedom and happiness,” notes Frank, who, with his shoulder-length grey hair, looks as if he has just been transported into the present as an older version of a late 1960s younger self. “Sure, there were drugs, but it was all pretty low-key, or it was all behind the scenes even if some really wild things did go on.“ For the two brothers, it was clear that some of the local ‘pommy’ Establishment didn’t like what was happening and probably reported them to the police. Fortunately, at the time of the raid there was no band at Ridge Farm and is probably why the police did not find anything egregious.
Billy, however, who is now 65 and the more effusive of the two brothers, was fined 40 pounds for the remains of a joint in the pub, which was run by his mother. Disappointed, the police blocked the renewal of The Plough’s alcohol license, a decidedly underhand move which eventually forced the family to sell the establishment. “This was a pity because the pub had just won the Egon Ronay Cheese Pub of the Year Award for the whole of England,” explains Frank wistfully. At the time, the Egon Ronay Food Guide, which is now run by the Royal Automobile Society, was widely renowned for its good taste and responsible for significantly raising the quality of British restaurant food from a broadly mediocre base. As for Ridge Farm, the police charged their father, John Andrews, the Cambridge-educated Chief Engineer of the National Coal Board, with being the mastermind behind the supposed drug ring. It took several years for the father to clear his name. Nevertheless, the tension created led to the departure in 1983 of Billy, leaving Frank to continue developing Ridge Farm into one of Britain’s most important countryside production and recording locations for leading bands, including Oasis, Roxy Music, Pearl Jam, Bad Company, OMD and Wet Wet Wet. This continued until the early 2000s. But by then, the record business had changed. Major companies preferred that their protégés use their own establishments in London or Los Angeles rather than disappear into the rural outback. Furthermore, given Ridge Farm’s success, other entrepreneurs had set up their own recording studios. The last musician to record at Ridge was Joe Jackson, a British performer and songwriter, in 2002.
SECLUDED AND RUSTIC: A MOST UNLIKELY ROCK CENTRE
Located in a quiet, out-of-the-way rural setting with 16th century converted farm buildings, swimming pool, tennis court and sprawling woodland garden, basically, the romantic English country idyll, Ridge Farm now operates as a much sought-after location for weddings, birthdays, business meetings and other events. Its corridors are lined with best-selling disc awards for the Ridge Farm bands and other memorabilia, such as the same croquet set that Queen used. Or the kitchen where the staff catered meals for the bands; some of them sometimes cooked for themselves or at least made tea. More recently, the Farm has attracted nostalgia aficionados, particularly from China and Japan, wishing to see where Freddy Mercury played tennis or the Gallagher brothers of Oasis sat around producing – and arguing. “The idea of setting up a studio at the farm was obvious,” recalls Frank Andrews as we drink tea and eat baked potato in what used to be Ridge Farm’s main studio building. His brother Billy and two collaborators – both veteran music technicians who have been working on and off at Ridge Farm for decades – are chatting with us. “All these bands needed an out-of-the-way place to rehearse and to record…to get away from all the London distractions,” he adds. The first band to come in 1975 – Ridge Farm’s launch year – was Back Street Crawler, an English-American rock band founded by former Free musician, Paul Kossoff. As Frank explains, they turned up with Ronnie Laine’s
One of the Ridge Farm buildings, now a guest house. (Photo: Edward Girardet)
"It was a fantastic time" Billy (left) and Frank (right) Andrews at Ridge Farm. (Photo: Ed Girardet)
mobile recording unit. Laine, who died in 1997 of multiple sclerosis, was best known as a musician, producer and songwriter as well as a founding member of the British rock group The Small Faces – and later Faces. “It all took off right after that. The bands started coming.” Despite their earlier dispute, Frank and Billy now regularly see each other. As we talk, both are eager to share their reminiscences of the studio’s heyday since the mid1970s until well into the 90s. For three of their five kids, now in their twenties and also listening in the kitchen, this was the first time that they have heard some of these stories. “Of course, it was all very basic in the beginning… just a place to rehearse,” continues Frank, eyes sparkling at past memories.
QUEEN, BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY AND THE RIDGE FARM PIANO
Frank’s main job was lighting technician for Queen, Rolling Stones, ABBA and other groups during their concert tours across the UK and Europe. “I would often be away for months on end,” he recalls. “It was a fantastic time…And there are lot of stories I’m not going to tell you,” he adds with an enigmatic smile. When Queen told him that they were looking for a place to get away, he suggested Ridge Farm. Queen turned up for six weeks in 1975. At the time, the band was still relatively unknown, but in the process of exploding onto the scene. They were working on “Night at the Opera”, their fourth album. Frank had yet to install the studio’s state-of-the-art recording facilities, so the four band members only used the farm to write and compose
their songs. They later travelled to Rockfield in Wales to record. The 2018 movie Bohemian Rhapsody, which profiles Freddy Mercury’s life, depicts Ridge Farm but another location was used for the filming. The band lived in the main building with its irregular wooden staircases, uneven floors and secluded bedrooms, each one completely different. “There was very much a family atmosphere. It was all very informal with flared trousers, or in the case of Freddie, very short shorts and black-painted fingernails,” recalls Frank. “They played snooker and tennis – Freddie was really good at tennis. Or they went for swims in the indoor pool. They also loved our dog and were constantly playing with it.” Evenings they would all drive to the pub to chat and relax. “Some of the pommy clientele probably hid their daughters when the lads came in with their long hair and jeans,” adds Billy with a grin. Both brothers agree that Freddie was extremely quiet and shy, and very polite. For a musician later renowned for his ostentatious behaviour and for being gay, or at least bi-sexual, and who died of AIDS, Mercury also turned up with his girlfriend Mary. “Really not quite what you would expect, but clearly a very complex fellow,” he adds. Smiling, Billy nods in agreement. “Queen were exceptional.” “Yeah, but Queen were very serious. Very professional. They worked hard,” interjects Frank. He points to the room next door, which still serves as a studio by one of the Andrews’ children. It is crammed with equipment, boxes and other items. Frank gestures to the piano. “I like to imagine that Freddie composed ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on it,” he muses. “In actual fact, he didn’t like our piano
Members of Queen jamming at Ridge Farm (Photo: Ridge Farm Archives)
and had his own brought in, you know, the famous white one. But as far as we’re concerned, our piano was the inspirational one.”
ESTABLISHING ONE OF THE UK’S LEADING MUSICAL RETREATS
As wild as many of these bands were, Frank understood the need to get away in order to rehearse and work on their songs. On return from one of these tours, he found that his parents had moved and no longer wished to live at the farm. So together with Billy, they proceeded to transform one of the old buildings into a studio. Several years later, once the Ridge Farm began to prove successful, Frank arranged to buy the farm off his parents. From then onwards, Frank and Bill began to develop Ridge Farm into a musical retreat. This was before the two feuded. “A bit too much drinking and too many drugs,” admits Billy with a laugh. “I was a bit all over the place. There were also a lot of roadies around.” Consisting of several typical post-medieval main buildings and barns partially constructed from old ship lumber, Ridge Farm proved ideal. Not only did it offer both space and privacy, but it was also not far from London. Barely one hour and 30 minutes drive from Gatwick Airport. While the two brothers together with several other tour technicians created a studio, it was initially only for rehearsing, not recording. The bands had to bring their own mobile sound equipment. It was only much later that Frank set about building a state-of-theart recording facility, the Ridge Farm Studio. At the time, the idea of producing a rock album in the countryside was completely unique. The managers liked the concept because their bands could focus on getting the job done. “It was really a great location, a bit of traditional England and a complete contrast to their rock ‘n roll lives,” explains Frank, who continued touring with bands for another five years before focusing completely on the studio operation. “There was a lot of drinking and drugs. A lot of white powder with some of the bands getting pretty ripped. I would have died had I continued.” During the 25 years that Ridge Farm functioned as one of England’s leading music retreats, numerous renowned musicians and bands passed through, some to work, others simply to party or to jam. “It was fantastic to think that we jammed with people like Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Bad Company, or Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull,” says Billy, who plays the piano. “The bands could work however and whenever they liked,” Frank continues. “Sometimes you would turn up first thing in the morning and some of the band members would just be going to bed. Or, you’d have to go and wake them to drag them out of bed.” At the same time, he adds, “a lot of them were exceptionally serious musicians. They worked very intensely to create some incredibly epic, legendary music.” Oasis, the highly influential English band from Manchester known for its feuding, drugs and bad behavior came to Ridge Farm in 1996 in a bid to find some peace and quiet in order to complete their third album, ‘Be Here Now.’ “They were also very serious about their music, but constantly bickering. There was a lot of shouting and swearing,” says Frank, with Billy nodding.
Mentioning band after band, or individual musicians whom they revered, the two of them recall the great or memorable moments of Ridge Farm of which there are clearly many. One of the most notable being the time when Sharon Aaron, Ozzy Osbourne’s then girlfriend and later wife, tossed his Rolex into the garden pond during one of their many arguments. “We had to come in with a metal detector. We looked really hard, but we never found it,” Frank says before pausing. “It could still be there.”
FROM THE FIELD
Pierre-Michel Virot Seeing the world by looking for it Mark Hartford
For Swiss photographer Pierre-Michel Virot, Geneva probably ranks as one of the best launching pads to cover the world than anywhere else, particularly at a time when so many journalists are finding it increasingly difficult to embrace their passion – and to make a living. Based out of the Palais des Nations, the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Virot is not only able to travel the globe for various UN agencies and donor governments covering everything from HIV/AIDS to sustainable development, but also to focus on the sort of art photography – “working with light” as he puts it - that he loves.
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Syrian girl in Turkish refugee camp near Syrian border on Aleppo.
Horn of Africa nomad. UNAIDS photographic assignment in Djibouti as part of Red Sea Initiative.
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Women in Djibouti.
A Namib dune gecko in Namibia, southwest Africa.
Uzbek woman in front of the Imam Buxoriy monument complex in Samarkand along Central Asia’s Silk Road.
Street scene in Mexico.
Portrait in India.
(All Photos: Pierre-Michel Virot)
STOCKY, AND LOOKING SOMEWHAT LIKE A LARGE, Steiff instructor, maintains that his vision is to use high quality teddy bear, Pierre-Michel Virot speaks intently if not imagery as a means of engaging people, both young and old. slightly gruffly in English, as if to ensure that you have Much of this is directed specifically through educational understood precisely what he has just said. “It is not that initiatives, particularly in the developing world. Regularly my photography has changed,” he explains. “It’s just that I commissioned by the International Telecommunications am constantly developing new approaches.” This includes Union (ITU), another Geneva organization, Virot is fine art photographic prints, which have been exhibited particularly fascinated by its Broadband Commission both in Switzerland but also the Musée Riattu in Arles in for Sustainable Development. Together with UNESCO, southern France. this seeks to hook up the world via Internet, particularly “I still do subjects that I am commissioned to cover amongst neglected communities in Africa and elsewhere. in different parts of the world, like India or Nepal. But I am also working a lot with models and with light, such as making daylight look like night, or the other way round. It’s another way of looking at things,” he says. Virot, who was born in Geneva but has lived much of his life abroad, notably in the United States and Japan, probably stands out as someone who has done more photography on HIV/ AIDS than anyone else. This is because, as he explains, he has been repeatedly dispatched on assignment across the planet by the World Health Organization Photographer Pierre-Michel Virot: Constantly developing new approaches. and UNAIDS, both Geneva-based agencies. “So wherever I go, I am constantly seeking ways of illustrating what it has done both to people As a photographer, Virot first started out with Le Matin, and the world, plus also taking pictures for myself,” he a Swiss daily where he worked for four years. This was a says. great time, he recalls with a knowing grin. “It enabled me Now living back in Geneva with his partner and to meet all sorts of singers and rock stars.” He also worked two children, Virot continues to travel, but spends time on various long-term reporting projects, such as child on various photo projects in Switzerland itself. Much trafficking, notably TF1, France’s leading commercial of Virot’s work has been published in leading national TV network, and its prime programme, 52 sur la Une. and international publications ranging from the New His pictures featured for several years in the channel’s York Times, Financial Times and Newsweek to Sports regular introtheme. He also has a permanent exhibition at Illustrated, Entrevue and The Lancet. He has been involved UNAIDS headquarters, plus has had exhibitions in Geneva, with various television features and specials as well as Zug and Zurich of Nu Noir, a black and white collection of exhibitions highlighting HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, he has nude figures, as well as an exhibit in 2011 on transgender been published jointly with Brazilian Sebastião Salgado, living. a world-renowned social documentary photographer of workers and environmental themes. MARK HARTFORD is a New York-based freelance journalist and Virot, who is also a commercial helicopter pilot-cumwriter, who often reports out of Europe, Africa and Asia.
