Mangrove trees with their tangled roots, exposed at low tide and submerged at high, are nurseries for fish and crabs. The disappearance of the mangroves led to erosion and silt that choked seagrass and coral. Although he had a degree in animal husbandry, Pisit and his friends knew little of coastal ecology when they started Yadfon, the country's first non-governmental organization devoted to coastal conservation. But having worked elsewhere in the country for fifteen years in large bureaucratic NGOs, Thai and foreign, he did have firm ideas about Yadfon's shape and substance. It should encourage the formation of community organizations that could initiate and carry out their own projects.
Today there are still only eleven staff members.
And Ploenjai, a veteran social worker, had grown up in Trang province, on a farm outside the capital city. Regardless, the entire Yadfon staff were looked on with suspicion as outsiders, Buddhists at that, and had to earn the villagers' trust. The staff spent long stretches living in the villages. Meetings lead to wisdom. Eventually, the communities decided that they most urgently needed wells, since they suffered severe drought in the dry season.