Thailand’s Favorite Fish Is Vanishing; Our Appetite Is To Blame

"Pla Tu" (mackerel) is Thailand’s favorite fish; a once plentiful source of protein for millions who seek out the freshest, fattiest fish for hot oily curries, a cheap meal smoked and flaked into fried rice. But the nation's favorite fish is running out, thanks to trawlers scraping the shallows where the fish uniquely breed in the Gulf of Thailand.

At dawn outside a temple on the Mae Khlong River, fishermen return from the Gulf with their catch each morning, complaining it’s diminishing. Yet 11 tonnes of fish were caught on average each day in the Gulf of Thailand in 2022. up from 8 tonnes the year before.

Forced into a crisis response, the Thai government temporarily bans fishing along the neck of sea that runs up to Mae Khlong, hoping stocks will recover. But the results will be slow to be seen. Instead, as the price of Thai mackerel rises, the old fishing families of Mae Khlong's market sell frozen imports from Indonesia, as demand shifts a consumption problem across Southeast Asia.

This multimedia project looks at the entire supply chain, from sea to plate, through chefs, fishers, market traders, and consumers to explore how consumption is emptying Thailand's nearest seas—an ecological crisis which, left uninterrupted, will eventually hit the diets of millions of people.