Passion for Restoration

A couple in their thirties who live right next to my house in Banrai have a passion for restoring agricultural land to their former state of being forests. "Give it back to nature, create biodiversity", they say.
Both husband and wife are graduates of one of Thailand's best universities and could easily live in Bangkok or another big city and earn good salaries. Instead, they have chosen to live way out in the country on a two-acre piece of land and have turned their entire backyard into a wild little place.
Imagine the Amazon jungle in miniature; that's what they have created. Tarzan and Jane would feel quite at home there, and also Adam and Eve.
There is both art and science to creating forests; it's not a simple matter of planting lots of trees. Nature exists in a delicate balance, and the forest "designer" has to know what goes together and what does not. Biodiversity is a major goal.
I admire the couple for doing what they believe in and accepting the sacrifices that being true to oneself requires. They have planted in me an important seed of awareness and a compelling theme that rings good and true. And besides, it does my heart a great deal of good to see younger people in Thailand "walk the talk" instead of getting lost in a world of appearances and pretensions.

Photo location: Baan Hintoom, Uthaitani province