A DAUGHTER OF THE SEA

Activist Khairiyah Ramanyah is an example of the power of youth-led movements and intergenerational solidarity

- STORY: SIRINYA WATTANASUKCHAI AND KWANCHAI DUMRONGKWAN

In Chana district, Songkhla province, the ocean is never far away. "You walk out the front door and there's the sea," says Khairiyah Ramanyah, smiling.

She remembers doing her homework as a child while dolphins leapt in the distance. The sea was never just a view. It was family.

Her father, like many men in the village, is a fisherman with a small wooden boat. Her mother sells harvested crabs, shrimp and squid in the market. The rhythms of her childhood were set by tides and seasons. "Even seeing the sea every day still feels special," she says. "It always will."

But that familiar beauty began to erode over time. Commercial trawlers depleted fish stocks, power plants brought pollution, erosion stole the beaches and colourful coral reefs were bleached bone-white. Rising temperatures forced fish into deeper waters, beyond the reach of small boats. For Khairiyah, the change was not just environmental; it was personal.

Rooted in that lived experience, Khairiyah, now 23, has since become one of Thailand's most recognisable young environmental activists. This year, she is also one of the featured voices in Unicef Thailand's #CountMeIn 2025 campaign, which highlights youth-led climate action and calls for stronger support for young people on the front lines.

By the time she understood what was happening, Khairiyah knew the sea was changing forever.

"At first, what I feared most was that there would be no seafood left for me to eat," she says, laughing. That fear, of not finding seafood on the table when she came home, may sound trivial, but it symbolises something more troubling. For families who have relied on the sea, the loss of these everyday ingredients reflects something much deeper: the destruction of the sea itself.