Conservation science in Thailand’s burning forest

Traditionally, burning has helped farmers enrich soil, and fire can be a natural part of a forest's ecosystem.

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Some seeds rely on fire to germinate.But agricultural burning can quickly spread to adjacent forest intentionally or by accident

Scientist Inna Birchenko began to cry as she described a regular impulse in remote northern Thailand where she was collecting samples from local trees shrouded in wildfire smoke.“This beautiful, diverse community of trees and animals is being destroyed as you see it, as you watch it,” said Birchenko, a geneticist at Kew Botanic Gardens. Kew, was collecting seeds and leaves in Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary with colleagues from Britain and Thailand. They will study how temperature and moisture affect germination and whether genetic traits state these references. They may one day help ensure that reforestation is done with trees that can withstand the hotter temperatures and drier conditions caused by climate change. But in Umphang, a remote region in Thailand’s northwest, the scientists confronted the toll that human activity and climate change are already having on forests that are supposed to be pristine and protected.

Birchenko and her colleagues hiked kilometre after kilometre through charred or smouldering forest, each footstep risking penetration into ash and gray earth. They passed thick fallen trees that were smoking or even being licked by dancing flames, and traversed stretches of farmland littered with corn husks, or with the sanctuary’s famous — horrible, dead elephants and even tigers — was nowhere to be seen.