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Bangkok Air Pollution Forces 352 Schools to Close

Air pollution in the Thai capital forced the closure of more than 350 schools Friday -- around a hundred more than the previous day. Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP
Air pollution in the Thai capital forced the closure of more than 350 schools Friday -- around a hundred more than the previous day. Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP
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Bangkok Air Pollution Forces 352 Schools to Close

Air pollution in the Thai capital forced the closure of more than 350 schools Friday -- around a hundred more than the previous day. Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP
Air pollution in the Thai capital forced the closure of more than 350 schools Friday -- around a hundred more than the previous day. Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP

Air pollution in the Thai capital forced the closure of more than 350 schools on Friday, city authorities said, the highest number in five years.

Bangkok officials announced free public transport for a week in a bid to reduce traffic in a city notorious for noxious exhaust fumes.

Seasonal air pollution has long afflicted Thailand, like many countries in the region, but this week's hazy conditions have shuttered the most schools since 2020, said AFP.

"Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has closed 352 schools across 31 districts due to air pollution," the authority said in a message shared on its official LINE group.

On Thursday, more than 250 schools in Bangkok were closed due to pollution, as officials urged people to work from home and restricted heavy vehicles in the city.

Air pollution hits the Southeast Asian nation seasonally, as colder, stagnant winter air combines with smoke from crop stubble burning and car fumes.

By Friday, the level of PM2.5 pollutants -- cancer-causing microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs -- hit 108 micrograms per cubic meter, according to IQAir.

The reading makes the Thai capital the world's seventh-most polluted major city currently.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 24-hour average exposures should not be more than 15 for most days of the year.

By Friday morning, 352 of the 437 schools under the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority had shut their doors, affecting thousands of students.

Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on Thursday ordered a ban on stubble burning -- intentionally burning leftover crops to clear fields -- with those responsible risking legal prosecution.

In another bid to curb pollution, a government minister said Friday that public transport in Bangkok would be free for a week.

The capital's Skytrain, metro, light rail system and bus services will be free to users from Saturday, transport minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit told reporters.

"We hope this policy will help reduce pollution."

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who is currently attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, called for tougher measures to tackle pollution on Thursday, including limiting construction in the capital and seeking cooperation from nearby countries.

Regional problem

Cities in neighboring Vietnam and Cambodia also ranked high on IQAir's most-polluted list on Friday, with Ho Chi Minh second and Phnom Penh fifth.

Cambodia's environment ministry confirmed on Friday that the air quality in Phnom Penh and three other provinces had reached a "red level", meaning highly polluted.

The ministry said in a statement that the air pollution was caused by climate change, waste incineration and forest fires, and urged the public to monitor their health and avoid outdoor activities.

Air pollution has closed schools across other parts of Asia recently -- specifically Pakistan and India

Nearly two million students in and around New Delhi were told to stay home in November after authorities ordered schools to shut because of worsening air pollution.

Pakistan's most populated province of Punjab in November closed schools in smog-hit major cities for two weeks, with thousands hospitalized as air pollutants hit 30 times the level deemed acceptable by the WHO.

Bangkok's school closures come as UNICEF said in a report that 242 million children's schooling was affected by climate shocks in 2024.

Climate change can worsen the problem of air pollution which is considered a "secondary impact of climate-induced hazards", according to the report published Friday.

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Varieties

Tiger Poachers Use Fishing Boats to Smuggle Body Parts Out of Malaysia, Study Shows 

A Malayan tiger walks in its enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in Cincinnati, July 7, 2023. (AP)
A Malayan tiger walks in its enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in Cincinnati, July 7, 2023. (AP)
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Tiger Poachers Use Fishing Boats to Smuggle Body Parts Out of Malaysia, Study Shows 

A Malayan tiger walks in its enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in Cincinnati, July 7, 2023. (AP)
A Malayan tiger walks in its enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in Cincinnati, July 7, 2023. (AP)

Commercial fishing fleets have been playing a key role in trafficking parts of tigers poached in Malaysia, according to research released Wednesday that could help enforcement efforts to save the critically endangered cat.

The fishing boats are part of a network of routes used by sophisticated teams of poachers to move parts of illegally killed Malayan Tigers and other poached animals to Vietnam, according to the study by conservation organizations Panthera and ZSL in conjunction with Malaysia's Sunway University.

Through interviews with more than four dozen people involved in the operations, including poachers and those who brokered sales of the illicit goods, researchers found that fishing boats were able to carry larger consignments, cheaper, and less likely to be checked by customs than land or air routes.

“To really crack a problem and insert the right intervention that's going to have any impact you have to understand the thing inside out,” said Panthara's Rob Pickles, the lead author of the study, in a phone interview from Kuala Lumpur. “That's what we hope that this study does — contribute to that depth of understanding of the problem to allow us to tailor the interventions.”

From a population estimated at some 3,000 tigers in the middle of the 20th century, the latest estimates are that there are only about 150 of the cats left in Malaysia and they have already gone extinct in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam over the last 25 years.

In addition to poaching, tigers have lost much of their habitat to deforestation, and they have been falling victim in recent years to the canine distemper virus while a major source of food, the wild boar, has been decimated by the African swine fever virus.

“It's their last gasp,” Pickles said. “This is the last chance to turn things around.”

The tigers live in the forests of peninsular Malaysia, which is connected by land to Thailand to the north. They have also been targeted by poachers from Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand, but researchers said the Vietnamese teams operate on a “different order of magnitude.”

Almost all from the poor, rural and rugged province of Quang Binh, where many took to the jungles to escape relentless American bombing during the Vietnam War, the poachers use well-honed bushcraft skills to live as small teams in the forests for three to five months at a time on poaching excursions.

They capture wild tigers with heavy steel snares made of wires as thick as a person's index finger, as well as other animals.

Once caught, the tigers are killed and processed largely for their bones, which are boiled for days until they become a gelatinous glue-like substance that is pressed into small blocks and sold for perceived medicinal benefits. Claws and teeth are used to make amulets.

As Malaysia went on lockdown during the COVID pandemic, poaching operations came to a near standstill. The researchers were able to use the time to find and interview more than 50 individuals involved in the operations for the study, which was done in two phases concluding in 2024.

Researchers learned that fishing boats were also used to carry bear paws and bile, live civets, wild boar tusks and meat, pangolins, monitor lizards and turtles.

One person told researchers the fishing boats were ideal to send larger items like tiger skins.

“Nobody checks,” the interviewee was quoted as saying. “In addition, people can go back by boat so many things also can be brought back by this route.”

Malaysia and Vietnam have both been increasing maritime controls recently, making trafficking by fishing boats riskier.

Malaysian authorities have also had success in catching poachers and have substantially increased punishments for wildlife crime in recent years, though the study also found that the managers who send the teams into the forests are rarely caught and can easily recruit replacements.

Researchers also learned that many Vietnamese poachers take on significant debt to travel to Malaysia.

They recommend that in addition to focusing more on fishing boats, authorities should target potential poachers in their home villages in Quang Binh with information about the increasing risks and diminishing returns to try and dissuade them from coming to Malaysia in the first place.

Officials in Malaysia and Vietnam, both of which were celebrating public holidays this week, did not respond to requests for comment on the survey and its recommendations.

“We can’t arrest our way out of a problem or over-rely on the criminal justice system,” said ZSL's Gopalasamy Reuben Clements, a co-author of the report.

“We need to explore other approaches, such as highly targeted behavioral change interventions, that can run in parallel to arrests and prosecutions.”