“The cultural landscape would disappear with the ecology. Century-old markets, household piers, fish nets and water-spinach enclosures would be removed as “encroachments”. Khlong Saen Saep would become little more than a drainage channel serving inner Bangkok.”

In this article, writer and arts manager Harmish Muszid brings into focus the ecological and cultural impacts of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s plan to build reinforced-concrete embankments along the Khlong Saen Saep canal in the city’s agriculturally driven Nong Chok district—the last stretch of the Khlong with earthen banks, clean water, and a traditional canal-side way of life. 

Read more about this in Heritage Matters, a column presented by The Siam Society in The Bangkok Post here.

Harmish Muszid is a writer and arts manager. He runs a social media project called ‘Your Neighbor Ari’.