Deputy city governor Wisanu Subsompon on Thursday welcomed Angela Macdonald, Australian Ambassador to Thailand on her visit to witness the progress of the Resilient Urban Centres and Surrounds (RUCaS) programme at the On Nut Garbage Disposal Centre in Prawet district.

Kristin Tilley, Australia’s Ambassador for Climate Change and Pornprom Wikitset, environmental adviser to governor Chadchart Sittipunt, also joined the visit.

The deputy governor reported on the progress of Bangkok’s initiative to plant one million trees to increase green spaces throughout the city as well as help absorb fine dust pollution. The initiative has been extended to the eco-forest project at the On Nut Garbage Disposal Centre thanks to the cooperation between Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), PTT Global Chemical Plc, and Kasetsart University.

The On Nut eco-forest project aims to plant 45,000 perennial trees in the areas around the garbage disposal plant by the end of 2023 to help absorb air pollution and odour from the plant’s operations. BMA and its partners will take turns taking care of the trees, while experts from Kasetsart’s Faculty of Forestry will evaluate overall progress every six months.

Trees in the eco-forest include resin trees, Ta-khian Thong, Shorea roxburghii, Siamese rosewood, black rosewood, fig and Yellow flamboyant.

RUCaS is an Australian-funded programme aiming to use water management as a catalyst to promote urban climate resilience in 4 Mekong countries – Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Lao PDR.

The RUCaS programme in Bangkok is a collaboration among BMA, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Water Sensitive Cities Australia, and is designed to use nature-based solutions to tackle issues caused by climate change in urban areas, promote sustainable knowledge transfer and employ economic measurement tools to evaluate progress.

The BMA has proposed two of its projects as case studies for the RUCaS programme, namely the Makkasan Kaem Ling water retention project (under the Drainage and Sewerage Department) and the On Nut eco-forest project (under the Environment Department).