But as of last year, they were catching up to 200kg a day thanks to the “crab bank” project set up |by the Local Fishermen’s Community.
Launched in 2010, the project cultures crab eggs and then releases the babies into the sea, increasing the population, Anant Manil, head of the P Sub Anant Local Fishermen’s Community, said recently.
“When the number of fishing boats increased, as most of them also catch both crabs and pregnant crabs, the number of crabs in the sea decreased, so we could catch only 20 kilograms of crabs per fishing boat per day in 2010 from normally 200kg before 2010.
“This impacted our income and other fishermen in the district, so we learned how to increase the number of crabs in the sea,” he said.
Anant started to cooperate with the National Institute of Coastal Aquaculture Songkhla, Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya and PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) to learn how to increase the number of crabs by cultivating eggs until the babies are born before being released into the sea.
“We don’t want someone to pay money to us. We want to improve our quality of life by ourselves. The crab bank is the way to improve our quality of life by ourselves,” he said.
The community is training other communities in Songkhla and other provinces in the South such as Pattani and students in several communities to do the same.
This helps them to develop their community and improve their household earnings.
Nat Lohsuwan, senior vice president for corporate communications and public affairs at PTTEP, said the company started to support this project in 2013 when it saw the project providing benefits to the community.
“The crab-bank project helps the community take care of itself. This is a sustainable project for the community.
“It is our policy to support all communities undertaking projects that can support them for the long term,” she said.
The company also is studying offering the same project in other provinces such as Pattani and Ranong, she said.
PTTEP’s corporate-social-responsibility strategy focuses on cooperating with communities to improve their quality of life.
For example, in Songkhla, the company has collaborated with |the provincial administration |and TK Park to develop the Songkhla Smart Centre in Muang district.
In Phitsanulok, it also supports the community’s production of its local snack, fried bananas, and also promotes the product for the community.