HISTORY of KOH TALU
Koh TaluTalu Island is known as the navigator and Gateway to the Gulf of Siam along hundreds of years and also the cargo ships used the coast as a shelter during the monsoon season on the south side of the island. On the north side, you will see the natural sculpture eroded cliff by wind and thunderstorms for hundreds of years called “Chong Talu”.
Talu Island has beautiful and secluded natural resources, both on land and underwater. According to evidence, the island has been inhabited with lush greenery and coconut trees on the land and rich underwater resources. The local fishermen know well that on the sea bed around the island there are sources of abundant fish and they took advantage of it and caused the damage to marine resources.
Mr.Preeda Charoenpak, former fisherman of Phetchaburi, Since 1979, has returned to the island and bought the coconut orchard from the islanders. Instead of to be a fisherman, he intended to rehabilitate and protect the marine resources from the Illegal fishing. After learning about the modern fishing model from Japan, the concepts that reduces the destruction from fishing method he pushed forward the conservation project to be well-known and supported with a budget and gasoline for fisheries officers who came to work for Bang Saphan Bay effectively.
the Department of Fisheries began to realize the success of Bang Saphan Bay and transformed this area to be the site for spawning grounds of mackerel (Thailand’s economic fish). Therefore, the Bang Saphan Bay area was declared the Fisheries Resource Management Project by the Bang Saphan Bay community under the concept of “Your home fishing possession”. To provide the right knowledge to fisherman to help them manage their resources sustainably.
government announced law enforcement to protect the Bang Saphan Bay area around 150,000 acres, successfully modeling the first community-based fisheries management in Thailand by Mr. Preeda Charoenpak, and he also gave the land to set up the project office and support all activities of coastal fishermen continually to the present.
The occupied area on Koh Talu, is using for education of both sustainable conservation of natural resources and to learn the economic dimension by not developing along the trend of tourism for business purpose, so to support concept of social enterprise for conservation Koh Talu Island resort has been developed business on the island.
Since 1996,The coral rehabilitation project had been established together with the Marine Science and Conservation Foundation to help coral revival by “implant substructure technique”. Finally, this project became successful in 2008 and with collaboration of others 80,000 corals branches have been planted in 5 sites around the Thai gulf.
It also helped endangered underwater species such as the hawksbill sea turtles that come to lay eggs every year to the Island beach. The Island protect and nurture sea turtles from hatching to releasing them back to sea since the year 2009 until now.
2013The “Siam Marine Rehabilitation Foundation” had been established to motivate local youth and the public, in general, to participate in taking care of marine resources in a sustainable way. A partial revenue from the resort has been allocated for sustainable development and continue to be impetus of nature conservation.