Everybody in Thailand can be sure to have heard of PTT. The giant state owned Thai gas company is one of the biggest corporations in the country and is the only one to appear in the rankings of the Fortune Global 500 Companies, in which it marks the eighty first spot. We would not however, picture the PTT as being involved in environmentalist projects such as the PTT Green in the City initiative, a development venture that aims to provide cleaner and purer urban surroundings.
Located in Sukhapiban 2 (considered within the bounds of Bangkok), the PTT Green in the City provides an alternative view of the Bangkok concrete jungle. With an impressive coverage of twelve rai, this is a project which aims to not only bring a sense of greenery amongst a metropolitan landscape, but to raise awareness about the benefits of conservation. The composition of the project’s features will be divided in the following manner: seventy five percent of the land will be composed of greenery, through either lush forest or through plantations. This will consist of an assorted mix of lowland forest, mixed, forest, dry dipterocarp forest, brackish water forest, mangrove forest and waterfall and limestone forest. Ten percent of the land will be composed of water: be they lakes, streams of simple environments in which water flows abundantly. Lastly, fifteen percent of the work will be composed of centres in which workshops will be carried out, in which schemes to raise awareness and promote sustainability will be carried out. These building will be stylised in accordance to the environment and the surrounding aesthetics.
The project will promote for the creation of an ecologically compatible model of growth, tracing the steps of Dr. Akira Miyawaki, who advocated for the following in order to achieve the former: the first element is to grow plants that belong to the ecosystem in which the project is taking place. The second is to grow plants through a system of seeds, as opposed to tree planting, which can damage the soil and the plant itself. The ideal principle is to plant three to four plants of different species for every square metre of land. What makes the initiative resemble natural however, is the randomised allocation of these plants, which will eventually grow to display the assorted and arbitrary allocation of greenery of a real forest.
This having been done, the PTT Green in the City program will support the raising of awareness through an educational centre on how to “go green”. This impressive initiative is equally as important as the physical part itself, since conservation begins from changing the mind and different habits of society as a whole.
This will thus be an extension of the PTT Project established in 1994 called “Build a forest within 1 million Rai”, and will add strength to the good work that this first initiative began over twenty years ago.
We encourage all of you not only to visit this project in its early stages, but to take care of the environment that surrounds you, both here in Thailand and the rest of the world.