Thailand, once globally recognised as the "kitchen of the world," especially for its food security, boasted the capacity to produce enough food for domestic consumption with significant surpluses for export. Seafood, in particular, has long served as a vital protein source for Thais.
However, this situation has alarmingly reversed.
To begin, it's crucial to understand the definition of "food security."
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines it as, "All people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life."
This definition aims to raise global awareness about the sufficient and unrestricted allocation and sharing of food, addressing hunger and food shortages regardless of economic, social, or political status.
Food security encompasses four key dimensions.
Food availability: Ensuring sufficient quantity and quality of food
Food access: The ability to acquire appropriate resources, including the right to access nutritious food
Food utilisation: The body's ability to fully benefit from consumed food, supported by factors like clean water, sanitation, and good healthcare
Food stability: The consistent access to adequate food for individuals, households, or communities, without risk during sudden shortages
Historically, Thailand excelled in "food availability," especially concerning seafood.
Around 1961, Thailand introduced trawling, a modern fishing technique from Germany, which led to a massive increase in fish catches. This success propelled Thailand to become a major seafood producer, enabling exports from 1964 onwards and eliminating the need for seafood imports for domestic consumption for over 51 years (imports for processing and re-export of certain species like tuna, shrimp, and squid began to play a role after 1978).
This highlights Thailand's robust seafood security during that era.
Despite Thailand's strong seafood protein security, driven by increased catches from modern fishing gear like trawls, purse seines, and gillnets – tools capable of large-scale catches – these tools also possess significant potential for environmental and marine resources destruction. Their use necessitates strict management, limitation, and control by relevant government agencies.
However, those agencies regrettably allowed fishing to proceed without proper management, control, or enforcement of laws, affecting both small and large fishing vessels. This ultimately led to "overfishing" in Thai waters, a truly unfortunate outcome.
A pivotal shift occurred after 2015 when Thailand received a "yellow card" from the European Union (EU) due to issues with illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. To address this, the Thai government swiftly enacted new fisheries laws primarily aimed at complying with EU recommendations.
However, the author's analysis suggests that this solution was "flawed," as it lacked a deep understanding of marine resource management and the intricacies of Thai fishing communities. The laws were essentially, "copied from foreign regulations," and therefore failed to align with the country's diverse contexts.
The repercussions have been severe and widespread.
Prohibition of fishing vessels: Over 10,000 commercial fishing vessels were prohibited from operating, leading to a loss of over one million tons of marine animals that fishermen previously caught annually (approximately 600,000 tons were for domestic consumption, and 400,000 tons were for processing and export).
Return to seafood imports: This forced Thailand to import over 600,000 tons of seafood annually (valued at approximately THB42 billion ~ US$1.3 billion) to compensate for the shortage. This marked a profound shift from being a "net exporter" to becoming dependent on seafood imports, a situation unprecedented for over half a century. Consequently, Thailand effectively became a "country lacking seafood security."
Collapse of the integrated fishing industry: Beyond the mere reduction in fish quantities, the entire fishing industry – from upstream to midstream and downstream – along with professions, knowledge, culture, traditions, and livelihoods connected to Thailand's marine fisheries, suffered severe impacts, potentially leading to its complete collapse.
Beyond the impacts, the new fisheries law had another crucial flaw: it unintentionally, "increased the destructive potential of marine resources in nearshore areas." It permitted "small-scale fisheries" to increase their numbers (from 30,000 to over 80,000 vessels), expand vessel sizes (from not exceeding five GT to not exceeding 10 GT), and enlarge fishing gear (e.g., gillnet length from 500-1,000 metres to 22,000 metres).
The assumption was that small-scale fishers were "poor" and needed "greater access to resources", despite their vessels and equipment being worth hundreds of thousands to millions of baht.
However, the coastal areas where small-scale fisheries operate are critical breeding, nursery, and growth grounds for various marine species. These ecosystems are fragile and require strict conservation and controlled utilisation.
Increasing fishing capacity (in terms of number, size, and gear) in these areas is tantamount to allowing, "sustainable destruction of marine resources," a consequence of policy and management errors rooted in a lack of genuine understanding.
A clear example of this flawed management is the "Indian mackerel resource."
Over the past 60 years, Thailand diligently "conserved" Indian mackerel by implementing "area closures," prohibiting all commercial fishing vessels from entering specific areas (around the Ang Thong Islands) and during certain periods (mid-February to mid-May).
However, small-scale fishing vessels, particularly those using gillnets (both surface and bottom-set), were allowed to fish freely throughout this time. This permission led to a significant decline and disappearance of both adult and juvenile Indian mackerel.
Concrete evidence emerged in 2025. After May 15, when the area was reopened (allowing commercial fishing vessels to operate in previously restricted areas), all commercial fishermen working there reported, with a unified voice, "Where have all the Indian mackerel gone?" because no one could catch any.
This unequivocally proves the grave errors in managing this crucial national resource.
Thailand's current seafood security crisis is a direct result of ill-considered and contextually inappropriate solutions to the IUU fishing problem.
A lack of knowledge and diligence from responsible agencies, coupled with the enactment of laws copied from foreign models without considering Thailand's unique resource characteristics and fishing communities, has led to a massive loss of marine animals, unprecedented import dependence, and the collapse of marine ecosystems and fishing livelihoods.
These impacts are not merely shifts in economic figures; they directly affect the lives and well-being of the people and serve as a vital lesson for Thailand to learn.
It's time for collective action to address this crisis. Here are some recommendations:
Acknowledge past mistakes: Openly and honestly recognize and analyse past errors, without assigning blame.
Collaborate to restore fisheries management knowledge: Develop a genuine understanding of marine ecology and fishing practices appropriate for Thailand's context and way of life.
Collaborate to amend laws: Tevise fisheries laws to align with the country's actual resource, social, and economic realities, moving beyond mere foreign imitation under the guise of international standards.
Collaborate to adjust and reduce gear size: Consider the use of sustainable fishing gear in terms of type, size, and quantity, appropriate to the resource's capacity.
Collaborate to monitor resource destruction: Strengthen monitoring mechanisms and enforce laws effectively.
Collaborate to instill conservation awareness: Promote the mindset among both fishermen and consumers to not catch or consume juvenile fish or fish with roe (and to release them back into nature if caught), as well as to protect and create additional fish habitats.