It was only 3.30pm but with rain threatening to fall at any time, darkness descended fast on Lam Nam Kok National Park in Doi Hang, Chiang Rai province. It had rained the night before and parts of the trail were slippery. One false move could easily send someone rolling down the steep mountainside to the point of no return.
The 1,400m trail led to the picturesque Khun Kon Waterfall, but my companions and I did not climb the mountain for the waterfall alone. We had gone there to see what kind of ferns and fern allies it had to offer to medical research.
Only the day before, we were at Doi Phu Nang National Park in Phayao province. The national park is one of the few places in Thailand where green peafowl are still found in the wild. The park’s chief said peafowl migrate there annually from Mae Yom National Park in neighbouring Phrae province during the breeding season from January to March. But even during other times of year, if you are lucky you might see a peacock or two wandering in the grounds of the park headquarters. A sign on the road leading to the guest house where we stayed the night read, “Caution: Green peafowl crossing.”
There is an ongoing project to study the birds, but we were told this was the first time researchers had gone there to survey plants. I was with a joint research team from the Royal Project and the Chulabhorn Research Institute, who had gone to the national park to explore its flora. They thought that the presence of peafowl indicated a rich biological diversity. In particular they were in search of certain species of ferns and the fern ally, selaginella, which are thought to have the potential to cure Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.
The park’s chief provided the team of researchers with two guides, both to show the way and to see the kind of plants they were interested in. Actually forest wardens, the guides also wanted to make sure that the team did not collect everything that they saw.
Captured: Botanist Thee Havanont takes photos of plants in Doi Phu Nang.
They did not have to worry. Declared a national park only three years ago, Doi Phu Nang National Park comprises 860 square kilometres, or more than 500,000 rai, of mountainous area with dry evergreen forest, mixed deciduous forest and deciduous dipterocarp forest. The lower slopes, however, were so encroached upon that I saw only one epiphytic fern and not a single orchid. I was told that there were orchids but they were 40km away at the mountain’s summit.
Instead, there were corn fields. “Out of the park’s more than 500,000 rai of land area, 10,300 rai is planted to corn,” the park’s chief said. “They were planted by villagers who claim they have been here before the park was created, but we are beginning to reclaim the land.”
In fact, corn on various stages of growth comprised most of the vegetation along the road from Phayao’s Dok Kham Tai district to Doi Phu Nang. Corn covered mountain slopes, whole hills and even roadsides. “If the villagers could plant corn on the road, they would have done it, too,” our driver commented.
The corn is planted as animal feed. Villagers even in the remotest areas do not have problem selling their crop, as middlemen would come to buy it during harvest time.
If the forest encroachers had not arrived at Doi Phu Nang first, the national park would be rich in natural genetic resources. We found at least five kinds of fern and fern allies clinging on just one rock near a waterfall, but their population was small in what is now secondary forest.
It rained the night before and the trail was slippery, so I did not go up the mountains with the researchers. I watched them as they crossed a swollen creek, the turbid water the colour of chocolate. When they returned from the 2.5km trek several hours later, disappointment was written on their faces.
Luscious: The forest floor is rich in biological diversity.
It rained hard after lunch, but determined to continue their survey, the group donned raincoats and took another trail, this time shorter but steeper than the first one. As before, they came back disappointed that they managed to collect only a few specimens. These would be planted and propagated by the team from the Royal Project, and later will be analysed for bioactive compounds by Nopporn Thasana, PhD, who wears two hats as a senior researcher in medicinal chemistry at the Chulabhorn Research Institute and professor at the Chulabhorn Graduate Institute.
The research team, led by ML Charuphant Thongtham of the Royal Project, decided to cut the trip to Doi Phu Nang short and go to Chiang Rai instead. It was noon when we arrived, there was time enough to explore the Lam Nam Kok National Park. After checking in the guest house where we were to stay the night, a group of us headed for the national park 30km from town.
The handful of tourists who went up the mountain took only about half an hour to reach the waterfall, but the researchers took hours as they inspected the sides of the trail for plants. Mingmit Ngarmdaeng and Supakij Thapkan, both from the Royal Project in Chiang Mai, and I reached the waterfall first. Then the forest, already dark as the canopy prevented the sun from penetrating the forest floor, became menacingly darker with the approaching rain.
As the three of us made our way down the mountain to beat the rain, Mr Nopporn and two others continued with their search. The three of them were soaking wet from the pouring rain when they finally joined us in the car an hour later, but happy that they found new species to add to their collection. n
Email nthongtham@gmail.com.
Treacherous tracks: The trail leading to the Khun Kon Waterfall at Lam Nam Kok National Park in Chiang Rai province.
Rock on: Selaginella, upper left, and fern, upper right, share a rock at Doi Phu Nang National Park in Phayao province.
