สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume II - 2010 Biodiversity in Thailand 110 This tremendous variety of living things has long been and continues to be an essential resource for human survival. Thai people directly use microbes, fungi, plants and animals in their surroundings as sources of agricultural products, traditional medicines, clothing, housing and tools, and many other species are used indirectly as sources of pets, recreation, ecotourism and essential ecological services. “Ecological services” include the benefits often taken for granted: water in the atmosphere, rivers and ground, soils, recycling of our wastes, and protection from the extremes of climate. The development of civilizations and cultural evolution has had a synergistic relation with the natural biological world that has long been taken for granted. Thai society depends on an enormous variety of vegetables, spices, fruits and flowers occurring naturally or in cultivated fields. Most cultivated fruits and vegetables have close wild relatives which persist in fields and forests. Thai food includes a wide variety of dishes which are particularly healthy because of the variety of herbs and spices they contain. Thai cuisine, in fact, ranks among the world’s greatest culinary achievements. This cuisine proclaims artistic creativity, variety and bold tastes besides its benefits to health. It is based on the ingenious use of native biodiversity. Wild plants of agriculturally important species contain the genetic resources needed to breed crops for resistance to pests and pathogens. Varieties of rice, for example, have been developed to be grown for floating farming, in paddy farming and in dry conditions in the highlands (Figure 4). A number of local species of Figure 4 Activities in rice field in Thailand