The Raknam Kaem Ling project

Mother Nature has been cruel to the people of Ban Limthong, a Buri Ram farming village in the Northeast, but with new water management schemes like Raknam, it is coming to life.

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The Northeast is generally arid, but new water projects like the Raknam project are starting to change that. Photos courtesy of Coca Cola.

Note: If you ever need to explain His Majesty the King's kaem ling concept in English, the last two paragraphs of this story will be a big help to you.

Note: See below for audio

The Raknam Kaem Ling project

Tracey Cui

Mother Nature has been cruel to the people of Ban Limthong, a Buri Ram farming village in the Northeast.

The Northeast — the largest yet poorest area in the country — has been plagued by poor water management which allows just one rice harvest a year.

The village's natural condition is harsh and not conducive for farming, even though rice cultivation is the only livelihood available to many. The land is arid most of the year, except in the rainy season. But even the rain has not been that generous of late as floodwater often runs down the slope and inundates rice paddies and people's homes. Community leader Sanit Thipnangrong says villagers have been struggling. Royal Irrigation Department water systems such as dams, canals and water gates have not been built in this area.

Monkey’s cheek ponds help villagers to store water and prevent flooding.

"I have had a rough time in the past. By the end of the year, I don't know how many crops I can harvest. I had to take out a loan and face many problems," says the 48-year-old farmer.

Many villagers in Thailand suffer the same fate, and yet change has come in the Ban Limthong. The water management project called Raknam (Love Water) has helped improve the situation. Raknam is a Corporate Social Responsibility programme run by Coca-Cola. Since the company uses a large amount of water to produce their drinks, it has come up with a campaign to reduce the impact on the environment.

Launched in 2007, the project, as well as other water-management related projects under the company's CSR, helps return fresh water to the ecology. The company, which relies so much on water, has set a target of returning to communities the same amount of water as it uses in worldwide production units by 2020.

Abundant water supply allows children in the village to continue their education.

The Raknam project embraces the kaem ling, or monkey's cheek, idea initiated by His Majesty the King.

The origin of the kaem ling projects can be traced back to 1995 when an epic flood hit Bangkok. The King advised the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to excavate huge ponds — thus the metaphor of a monkey's sagging cheek — to help drain floodwater for Bangkok. Since then, kaem ling has become famous countrywide as a cheap and environmentally friendly method to manage water and combat flood and drought.

Kaem ling relies on the simple idea of using natural ponds to store and drain water alternately during the dry and rainy seasons. But Raknam isn't only about ponds. Apart from financing villagers to dig natural ponds, the campaign also provides water management knowledge to them.